1.) I am following mostly teacher related feeds, such as...
NCTE.org (which is the national council of teachers of English, which I didn't know existed, bonus!), atozteacherstuff.com, and teachersbreakroom.com. But, I also threw in a few guilty pleasures like TMZ, The Alligator Online, and poorbuthappy.com, which is a website for travelers and backpackers.
2.) I chose those sites because I thought they would be helpful to have, and while I'm sure the NCTE.org web site will be more meaningful to me once I actually am a teacher, at this stage, it did nothing special for me. And the others were chosen because of a personal preference. Mostly though, I followed other English teacher's blogs. I found that most of the official teaching web sites weren't feeds, and didn't provide me with much help as far as getting a job teaching, what the job is really like, and day to day impressions of being a teacher. The blogs of different English teachers really intrigued and fascinated me. Here was true insight. I followed one guy, Jimbo, who is teaching in Japan, which is something I may want to do someday, as I teach at the ELI. I felt that I learned a lot about being a teacher through these blogs.
3.) I think the challenging part for me was sifting through junk links to find a truly great web page or feed. A lot of the teacher's blogs I clicked on didn't really discuss their teaching at all, just their personal lives. And I did a lot of reading to sift through the meaningless stuff to find something that would be of use to me. Also, as a person who is easily distracted online, I found the Google reader to be overstimulation for me. It was all right there at my fingertips, and my fingertips really just wanted to look at what the latest celebrity gossip was, even though I knew I should be reading the teaching web sites. It was my own fault for putting it on there though :).
4.) I thought about this in the context of a teacher like you, who has most of the class material online. In this case, it would be really easy for students to access all the material from one place. Students could create a google reader and add all the web sites needed from your class. But as a teacher, it would be useful in keeping track of students' blogs, even if they are not required. I'm taking another education class, and it talks a lot about informal formative assessment, where mere observation of a student outside classroom settings, either before, after, or in this case, online, can be one of the most helpful ways to gain insight into a student's behavior and performance. But anyway, another way that a teacher could use it as a way to keep up with current events, such as in many social studies classes. It could be used to formulate a project, or for students to use to have everything they need for a research paper. There are many options.
5. I don't really want to know more about feed readers, but what implications they might have on our society. It's so mindboggling that in only 21 short years, the Internet has become an instant gratifier of sorts. We went from dialup, to DSL, to iPhones, to feed readers that actually cut down time we have to spend (a few milliseconds per loading probably) surfing between websites. That's a pretty magnificent achievement. But where does it go from here? Everyone has these crazy notions of the future and what kind of technology will be there, but are they really that crazy? Most of all, for me, I wonder what teaching will be like in the distant future. Will teachers be obsolete? I don't think so, but I think those teachers will have a hell of a challenge.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The Digital Divide
1. Unfortunately, we live in an economically divided country. Even more unfortunately is that socioeconomic status determines what you will have access to, the quality of that access, and how much access you will get. It could be something as silly from where you buy your clothes to having access to a computer in a rapidly technologically progressive world.
2. We are living in a world in transition. We are in the process of taking our worlds and putting them on the internet. And this is an important era. It's the era of access. Access to knowledge, information, social networking, professional networking, etc, etc, etc. And mastery of this access creates creates individuals that want knowledge. Just in the realm of social networking, it is making communication so instantaneous. We see an interesting link, video, anything on the internet, and in the next instant, we're are posting it to Facebook to share with our friends. It is making communication with each other more vast. I think in this age, we know much more about each other than ever before.
3. I think that eventually, class time will be dedicated every day to using the computer in the curriculum. I do not necessarily think that this will be in any immediate future. I think a way that we could help if a student did not have at-home access to the internet would be to give the student extra time to complete the work, so that they are able to use a public computer, such as the ones at the library. Or, you could dedicate a time for the student to go to the school library, either during the said teacher's period, lunch, or whenever is convenient.
2. We are living in a world in transition. We are in the process of taking our worlds and putting them on the internet. And this is an important era. It's the era of access. Access to knowledge, information, social networking, professional networking, etc, etc, etc. And mastery of this access creates creates individuals that want knowledge. Just in the realm of social networking, it is making communication so instantaneous. We see an interesting link, video, anything on the internet, and in the next instant, we're are posting it to Facebook to share with our friends. It is making communication with each other more vast. I think in this age, we know much more about each other than ever before.
3. I think that eventually, class time will be dedicated every day to using the computer in the curriculum. I do not necessarily think that this will be in any immediate future. I think a way that we could help if a student did not have at-home access to the internet would be to give the student extra time to complete the work, so that they are able to use a public computer, such as the ones at the library. Or, you could dedicate a time for the student to go to the school library, either during the said teacher's period, lunch, or whenever is convenient.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Participatory culture
1. The networked student video shows quite a few features of participatory culture. The biggest feature prominent is the idea of sharing and connecting with others. In doing online research, and commenting on different blogs, the networked student becomes part of a community, where he feels his contribution matters. The use of online research from several sources, including doctors, professors, etc., involves the networked student in an informal mentorship, where the most experienced pass down, or share, knowledge with novices.
2. If this is a question of the difference between a networked student and a networked teacher, they are quite similar. The internet has created a world where one person is never only learning knowledge or only sharing knowledge, but can freely and easily do both. The networked teacher is just as important as a networked student.
2. If this is a question of the difference between a networked student and a networked teacher, they are quite similar. The internet has created a world where one person is never only learning knowledge or only sharing knowledge, but can freely and easily do both. The networked teacher is just as important as a networked student.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Bloom's Taxonomy and Case Study
Bloom's Taxonomy
Learning objectives for each level
Knowledge: The student will make flash cards for a test on vocabulary.
Comprehension: The student will summarize a piece of prose.
Application: The student will create a concept map for a paper.
Analysis: The student will make an outline for a paper on literary analysis.
Synthesis: The student will perform an experiment in a laboratory.
Evaluation: The student will write a final draft of a paper.
Paul's case study
The assumption that the students were less capable than he had originally thought is probably false considering that the majority of the students misunderstood why we have seasons. There is a chance that perhaps the students were not paying attention, but considering that he thought they had seemed interested in the topic, that may be incorrect, also. Sometimes, when students try to create a finished product such as an essay, what the student may have meant could possibly be misconstrued. Or they may have not been able to properly formulate their thoughts under time constraints or other environmental factors, in comparison to straight forward multiple choice or fill in the blank assessment choices. However, the concept that the students had misunderstood was a fairly straight forward fact. I think the missing link here is a cultural, or previous learning, experience. Paul had told his students that thinking the seasons are due to the distance of the earth from the sun was a false assumption. If this is an assumption that the students had thought throughout previous experience in science classrooms, or something their parents had told them, it is possible that those reinforcements were stronger than the ones Paul used in his classroom. Next time he teaches this, maybe he should have a more vivid demonstration. Perhaps he could use a video on the internet that incorporates visual and audio representations of the lesson.
Learning objectives for each level
Knowledge: The student will make flash cards for a test on vocabulary.
Comprehension: The student will summarize a piece of prose.
Application: The student will create a concept map for a paper.
Analysis: The student will make an outline for a paper on literary analysis.
Synthesis: The student will perform an experiment in a laboratory.
Evaluation: The student will write a final draft of a paper.
Paul's case study
The assumption that the students were less capable than he had originally thought is probably false considering that the majority of the students misunderstood why we have seasons. There is a chance that perhaps the students were not paying attention, but considering that he thought they had seemed interested in the topic, that may be incorrect, also. Sometimes, when students try to create a finished product such as an essay, what the student may have meant could possibly be misconstrued. Or they may have not been able to properly formulate their thoughts under time constraints or other environmental factors, in comparison to straight forward multiple choice or fill in the blank assessment choices. However, the concept that the students had misunderstood was a fairly straight forward fact. I think the missing link here is a cultural, or previous learning, experience. Paul had told his students that thinking the seasons are due to the distance of the earth from the sun was a false assumption. If this is an assumption that the students had thought throughout previous experience in science classrooms, or something their parents had told them, it is possible that those reinforcements were stronger than the ones Paul used in his classroom. Next time he teaches this, maybe he should have a more vivid demonstration. Perhaps he could use a video on the internet that incorporates visual and audio representations of the lesson.
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