This class has been enlightening for me. After changing my major from Journalism to English and teaching, I was frightened that I would not be inspired. But this class alone has inspired me. I know what I am supposed to be doing, I am supposed to teach. And because of this class, I have so much more passion and vigor for teaching, I am buzzing with anticipation of implementing the concepts I've learned in this class into my own teaching methods. Because of the Internet, we live in an increasingly global community, and I have learned about all the tools I need to ensure my students are integrated into this global community. And I think that's the biggest part of what I have learned in this class. The learners are at the heart of learning, not the teachers. And you'd think that was such a commonplace, Homer Simpson "DOH!" ideal, but it's not. It should be though. I truly believe that this class has taught me so much, not just about integrating technology, because I am part of this web-based generation, but about true learning and true understanding. The way to begin molding brilliant teachers, is to mold brilliant students. We all start out as students. And you can't make good teachers when the teachers teaching you how to teach are ill-informed or uninspired. Teaching is about inspiration. It's about passion. It has to be, for all the obstacles teachers have to face with regards to money, curriculum, administration, community, etc., you have to know, and know in your heart that this isn't just what you want to do, but something you have to do. I have to be a teacher. Because I want to change the world. And how do you even begin such a daunting task such as that? Well, it starts with the future. And students are the future.
As far as what I'd like to learn more about, well, I just want more resources. More outlets. More ways to communicate, collaborate, and create. And it isn't because this class hasn't given me all those things, but because now that I have them, I have an insatiable desire for more. And it's this feeling that I want to instill in the students I'll teach. I want them to always be asking for more.
And to the future students of this class: Come in with an open mind and an open heart. You will learn more than you ever thought about what it takes to be a teacher. This class will be a make-or-break for the faint-hearted and the unsure. Be tenacious and work hard, because this is one of the first steps you'll take to changing the world. And if you don't want to change the world, well, you shouldn't be a teacher.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
I chose classroom 2.0 because I felt like it was just such an in-depth resource. Here are the teachers of America, and I can ask them whatever I want and help them if I can. And most of the teachers had links to their other blogs, which were also interesting. I talked in a few discussions. The first one I commented on was using Facebook as a resource in the classroom. I told them my opinion, which is that facebook is becoming more and more like myspace used to be, and that it's starting to become filled with surveys, games, quizzes, and a lot of distractions for students. I mentioned that Twitter would be more helpful because you are able to create lists of groups of people, and that way, students will be able to separate their personal tweeting from their academic tweeting. I then helped out a teacher who teaches English as a Foreign Language, which is something I may be interested in teaching in the future, because of my work at the ELI. He was asking for some activities to do to get students excited about writing, and I gave him a few examples of games and fun little activities that I've used with my students. I told him that these were merely supplementary material though, as I was only a listening and speaking coach, and so my specialty was not writing. But the games I gave the students would be a good way to warm them up for writing a paper. I then talked to someone who needed to find a good voice community, and was going to pay for Elluminate, but that it was too expensive, so I just gave him a link to Voicethread and said "IT'S FREE!" and gave him some details about it. I can't believe I got to give an actual teacher resources to use in his classroom, and I'm just a measly student, I feel so accomplished!
I've learned that every walk of life has something to learn from the other. And that we live in such a collaborative community now, that it's nice to know that your other resources are teachers from all over the world who teach different subjects, have been teaching for different amounts of time, and all have different views on how to run a classroom. This web site is going to be a seriously important tool of mine in the future, once I become a teacher. Anytime I'm stuck on something in the curriculum, or am looking for a new way to approach a lesson, I have thousands of teachers at my fingertips. That's pretty powerful stuff right there.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
SOCIAL ACTION:
Takepart--I would say this is best for ages 13+, and I think it would be particularly useful for college students. I loved it! Not only can you read about the array of issues facing our global community, which was absolutely fascinating and in-depth, but there are links to get involved, news and blogs, and you can event CREATE something for their web-site, such as a video, blog, article, a group, or even post new social action opportunities in your community! Teachers can use this as a resource for students to do projects on prevalent and important issues going on in our world today, or even to get their students involved in volunteer work in their community. Spot on!
social actions--This is a search engine especially for social action, and it directs you to whatever issue on whatever web site that you're interested in taking part in. You can sign petitions, donate, volunteer, and it even just lists the most popular social action web sites. I would say this would be good for any age, with the help of the teacher. This would be a VERY viable resource for any teacher wanting to have their students do a project on social change. BAM! And there it is.
Change--Kind of the same deal as take part: you can learn about the web sites causes and issues, you can take action, start a petition, and even get involved with some of "changemakers" of our time. This would be a wonderful resource for middle to high school students if they had to do a paper on someone who is trying to change the world, a social issue in our world, or any other type of social action project/paper.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS:
communication skills--This web site would be really good for high school students about to move into college. There are so many links about what communication development is, how to implement communication skills, body language, public speaking, presentation skills, examples of communication skills, and so much more.
education world--this is an awesome resource for teachers that I came across while I was perusing through web sites. This is a web site of lesson plans, and lo and behold! I came across a lesson plan that helps students grades 3-12 (WHAT!) improve their listening and inquiry skills. It's a simple partner drawing activity. Genius is simplicity.
HODU--I thought this web site was pretty cool. It gives all sorts of resources on communication skills, but this link is to the section called "conversation games" and it's basically a list and description of various and simple games that you can play in the classroom, or even in the office, to increase communication skills. These games are so simple, you can adapt them for k-12.
Takepart--I would say this is best for ages 13+, and I think it would be particularly useful for college students. I loved it! Not only can you read about the array of issues facing our global community, which was absolutely fascinating and in-depth, but there are links to get involved, news and blogs, and you can event CREATE something for their web-site, such as a video, blog, article, a group, or even post new social action opportunities in your community! Teachers can use this as a resource for students to do projects on prevalent and important issues going on in our world today, or even to get their students involved in volunteer work in their community. Spot on!
social actions--This is a search engine especially for social action, and it directs you to whatever issue on whatever web site that you're interested in taking part in. You can sign petitions, donate, volunteer, and it even just lists the most popular social action web sites. I would say this would be good for any age, with the help of the teacher. This would be a VERY viable resource for any teacher wanting to have their students do a project on social change. BAM! And there it is.
Change--Kind of the same deal as take part: you can learn about the web sites causes and issues, you can take action, start a petition, and even get involved with some of "changemakers" of our time. This would be a wonderful resource for middle to high school students if they had to do a paper on someone who is trying to change the world, a social issue in our world, or any other type of social action project/paper.
COMMUNICATION SKILLS:
communication skills--This web site would be really good for high school students about to move into college. There are so many links about what communication development is, how to implement communication skills, body language, public speaking, presentation skills, examples of communication skills, and so much more.
education world--this is an awesome resource for teachers that I came across while I was perusing through web sites. This is a web site of lesson plans, and lo and behold! I came across a lesson plan that helps students grades 3-12 (WHAT!) improve their listening and inquiry skills. It's a simple partner drawing activity. Genius is simplicity.
HODU--I thought this web site was pretty cool. It gives all sorts of resources on communication skills, but this link is to the section called "conversation games" and it's basically a list and description of various and simple games that you can play in the classroom, or even in the office, to increase communication skills. These games are so simple, you can adapt them for k-12.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Curiosity, Imagination, Creativity, and Play
1. I have two much younger sisters. One is seven, and the other is eleven. Growing up, I knew how important all of those elements were to their learning. And it started with curiosity. When my sisters were infants, they were so curious. As soon as they could crawl, they were grabbing anything they could get a hold of, looking at it, touching it, chewing on it, whatever they could do to figure out what it was. As they got older I noticed that their imaginations ran wild. I was always getting involved in some role-playing game where there were fantastical creatures and ridiculous story-lines. And it was wonderful. And I think because my parents harbored and encouraged all these qualities in my sisters, that they are doing so well in school. Children will usually already have these qualities, but it's about encouraging them to use them that makes the difference.
2. What I want to know as a future teacher, is how to harbor these qualities in my teaching methods. How to constantly be utilizing these qualities in my curriculum. I feel that learning while using curiosity, creativity, imagination, and play, it makes the learning process more interactive and in that way, students will absorb and learn the material, rather than just memorizing it, these qualities facilitate critical thinking. I want to learn how to use them in my lesson plans.
3. The first thing I learned that popped up to me is that Creativity in education is perhaps as important as literacy. If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original. Children are not afraid to be wrong, but by the time they get to be adults, they are so afraid to make a mistake, that they are being educated out of their creativity. We have stigmatized mistakes, as Sir Ken Robinson said. J.K. Rowlings' Harvard commencement speech influenced me the most. I remember reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the first time in my fifth grade advanced reading class. I was enthralled. It was the first book I had read in school that entranced me. I would have to say that it absolutely opened my eyes to my own love of reading. After that, I was hooked. After I read that fateful book, I wanted to get my sticky fingers on as many novels as I could. I would read Goosebumps and Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. I would even try to read my mum's Stephen King books, but they scared me a bit. After that first Harry Potter book, I used my education as an excuse to "read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out," as Dylan Thomas would say. Her comments on failure really touched me. We are driven by our fear of failure. And not just Harvard graduates, but everyone in college. I wanted to be a writer, just like J.K. Rolwings, but went into college as a Journalism major, assuming that it was the only way I would make a living while writing. I soon realized that I hated it. Journalism was a business, not a creative outlet. We wrote hard (and boring) facts. I was always reprimanded and marked down for my "flourishing," and I felt that my love of writing was dying alongside the 5W's and the strict three-four sentence paragraph structure. So, I switched to English, and I felt like I was reawakened. My passion reignited. I had forgotten how much I had loved to read. And to write. And to write about reading. And to read about writing. It was a magnificent feeling. And my fear of failure has fell to the wayside, because my love of reading and writing and creativity and curiosity overpowered it. And play is just as important. We learn best through it. It's interactive and collaborative. I feel like children learn best when they don't think they're learning at all.
2. What I want to know as a future teacher, is how to harbor these qualities in my teaching methods. How to constantly be utilizing these qualities in my curriculum. I feel that learning while using curiosity, creativity, imagination, and play, it makes the learning process more interactive and in that way, students will absorb and learn the material, rather than just memorizing it, these qualities facilitate critical thinking. I want to learn how to use them in my lesson plans.
3. The first thing I learned that popped up to me is that Creativity in education is perhaps as important as literacy. If you're not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original. Children are not afraid to be wrong, but by the time they get to be adults, they are so afraid to make a mistake, that they are being educated out of their creativity. We have stigmatized mistakes, as Sir Ken Robinson said. J.K. Rowlings' Harvard commencement speech influenced me the most. I remember reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the first time in my fifth grade advanced reading class. I was enthralled. It was the first book I had read in school that entranced me. I would have to say that it absolutely opened my eyes to my own love of reading. After that, I was hooked. After I read that fateful book, I wanted to get my sticky fingers on as many novels as I could. I would read Goosebumps and Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. I would even try to read my mum's Stephen King books, but they scared me a bit. After that first Harry Potter book, I used my education as an excuse to "read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out," as Dylan Thomas would say. Her comments on failure really touched me. We are driven by our fear of failure. And not just Harvard graduates, but everyone in college. I wanted to be a writer, just like J.K. Rolwings, but went into college as a Journalism major, assuming that it was the only way I would make a living while writing. I soon realized that I hated it. Journalism was a business, not a creative outlet. We wrote hard (and boring) facts. I was always reprimanded and marked down for my "flourishing," and I felt that my love of writing was dying alongside the 5W's and the strict three-four sentence paragraph structure. So, I switched to English, and I felt like I was reawakened. My passion reignited. I had forgotten how much I had loved to read. And to write. And to write about reading. And to read about writing. It was a magnificent feeling. And my fear of failure has fell to the wayside, because my love of reading and writing and creativity and curiosity overpowered it. And play is just as important. We learn best through it. It's interactive and collaborative. I feel like children learn best when they don't think they're learning at all.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Educational Fair Use and Creative Commons Licensing Artifact
I created a project around the concepts of educational fair use and creative commons licensing, and in this project, the students will not only be learning these concepts, but implementing them and using them to create their own artifact.
http://areeslessonplan3.podomatic.com/entry/2010-03-02T16_43_21-08_00
Name: Aisha Rees
(1) Include the notes you took on the resources here:
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education:
Media Literacy education helps people of all ages to be critical thinkers, effective communicators, and active citizens:
all media messages are constructed
each medium has different characteristics and strengths and a unique language
of construction
media messages are produced for particular purposes
all media messages contain embedded values and points of view
people use their individual skills, beliefs, and experiences to construct their own
meanings from media messages
media and media messages can influence beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors,
and the democratic process
Copyright: A contentious climate:
teachers sense that copyrighted material should be available for their activities and
those of their learners, and that such availability has great social and cultural utility.
But on the other, they are aware of the increased vigilance with which copyright
owners are enforcing their rights. And their actual understanding of the subject is
incomplete or even distorted. As a result, there is a climate of increased fear and
confusion about copyright, which detracts from the quality of teaching. Lack of
clarity reduces learning and limits the ability to use digital tools.
Principles: *The limitations of this is that attribution and citation may be required
1. employing copyrighted material in media literacy lessons: Under fair use, educators using the concepts and techniques of media literacy can choose illustrative material from the full range of copyrighted sources
and make them available to learners, in class, in workshops, in informal mentoring
and teaching settings, and on school-related Web sites.
2. EMPLOYING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL IN PREPARING
CURRICULUM MATERIALS: educators using the concepts and techniques of media
literacy can integrate copyrighted material into curriculum materials, including
books, workbooks, podcasts, DVD compilations, videos, Web sites, and other
materials designed for learning.
3. SHARING MEDIA LITERACY CURRICULUM MATERIALS: Educators using concepts and techniques of media literacy should be able
to share effective examples of teaching about media and meaning with one another,
including lessons and resource materials
4. STUDENT USE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS IN THEIR OWN ACADEMIC
AND CREATIVE WORK: Because media literacy education cannot thrive unless learners themselves
have the opportunity to learn about how media functions at the most practical
level, educators using concepts and techniques of media literacy should be free to
enable learners to incorporate, modify, and re-present existing media objects in their
own classroom work.
5. DEVELOPING AUDIENCES FOR STUDENT WORK: Educators should work with learners to make a reasoned decision
about distribution that reflects sound pedagogy and ethical values. In some
cases, widespread distribution of students’ work (via the Internet, for example) is
appropriate.
Creative Commons:
This is a form of copyright that enables the owner of a creative work (story, song, video, etc.) to share his/her work with the world, so that it can be reused or built upon. They provide free licensing so that the creator of a work has the freedom to do what he/she wants with it. Some examples of users of CC: Al Jazeera, Google, Flickr, Wikipedia, whitehouse.gov, etc.
Licensing options using Creative Commons:
Attribution: This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.
Share alike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.
Attribution no derivatives: This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
Non-commercial: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Non-commercial share alike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.
Non-commercial no derivatives: This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
(2) Please describe how the multimedia artifact you submitted for this assignment demonstrates your understanding of the following issues:
(a) Educational Fair Use: I used the fourth principle of Educational Fair Use to create a project for students to explore the Internet to find and use others' artifacts to their advantage. And in this, they will create their own artifacts by recreating, tweaking, or building upon the artifacts they collect.
(b) Creative Commons: This project provides a way for students to become exposed to and use creative commons licensing for their own artifact. They have to decide which licensing option suits them best, and decide how they want their own artifact used online.
(3) Please provide a self-evaluation of your artifact using the following criteria:
Creativity: I think that my project is fairly creative. They are not just replicating others' artifacts, but must tweak or recreate them using other media outlets. This gives the students creative freedom to do something they want.
Artifact design: I think I did a good job of designing a project that is both creative and educational. I used two different outlets, Podomatic and Blogger, one to describe and give instructions for the project (as well as external links, etc.) and the other to give the students an example of my own work.
Success in demonstrating knowledge of content: I think I successfully demonstrated my knowledge of the concepts, and also gave the students external links so that they can see for themselves what I'm blabbing on about.
Effort put forth: I put a lot of effort forward into creating this project. It is probably not as detailed as a lesson plan would be, as I did not provide an assessment or rubric, but I still put all of myself into creating this project with the hopes that I can actually implement it into my curriculum once I become a teacher.
Level of learning attained: This project is definitely for the higher level learning skills, and should be used with high school students. The students are not just regurgitating facts, but have to create something to show me (the teacher) that they understand the concept, but more than that, that they can use the concept in their own work.
http://areeslessonplan3.podomatic.com/entry/2010-03-02T16_43_21-08_00
Name: Aisha Rees
(1) Include the notes you took on the resources here:
Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education:
Media Literacy education helps people of all ages to be critical thinkers, effective communicators, and active citizens:
all media messages are constructed
each medium has different characteristics and strengths and a unique language
of construction
media messages are produced for particular purposes
all media messages contain embedded values and points of view
people use their individual skills, beliefs, and experiences to construct their own
meanings from media messages
media and media messages can influence beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors,
and the democratic process
Copyright: A contentious climate:
teachers sense that copyrighted material should be available for their activities and
those of their learners, and that such availability has great social and cultural utility.
But on the other, they are aware of the increased vigilance with which copyright
owners are enforcing their rights. And their actual understanding of the subject is
incomplete or even distorted. As a result, there is a climate of increased fear and
confusion about copyright, which detracts from the quality of teaching. Lack of
clarity reduces learning and limits the ability to use digital tools.
Principles: *The limitations of this is that attribution and citation may be required
1. employing copyrighted material in media literacy lessons: Under fair use, educators using the concepts and techniques of media literacy can choose illustrative material from the full range of copyrighted sources
and make them available to learners, in class, in workshops, in informal mentoring
and teaching settings, and on school-related Web sites.
2. EMPLOYING COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL IN PREPARING
CURRICULUM MATERIALS: educators using the concepts and techniques of media
literacy can integrate copyrighted material into curriculum materials, including
books, workbooks, podcasts, DVD compilations, videos, Web sites, and other
materials designed for learning.
3. SHARING MEDIA LITERACY CURRICULUM MATERIALS: Educators using concepts and techniques of media literacy should be able
to share effective examples of teaching about media and meaning with one another,
including lessons and resource materials
4. STUDENT USE OF COPYRIGHTED MATERIALS IN THEIR OWN ACADEMIC
AND CREATIVE WORK: Because media literacy education cannot thrive unless learners themselves
have the opportunity to learn about how media functions at the most practical
level, educators using concepts and techniques of media literacy should be free to
enable learners to incorporate, modify, and re-present existing media objects in their
own classroom work.
5. DEVELOPING AUDIENCES FOR STUDENT WORK: Educators should work with learners to make a reasoned decision
about distribution that reflects sound pedagogy and ethical values. In some
cases, widespread distribution of students’ work (via the Internet, for example) is
appropriate.
Creative Commons:
This is a form of copyright that enables the owner of a creative work (story, song, video, etc.) to share his/her work with the world, so that it can be reused or built upon. They provide free licensing so that the creator of a work has the freedom to do what he/she wants with it. Some examples of users of CC: Al Jazeera, Google, Flickr, Wikipedia, whitehouse.gov, etc.
Licensing options using Creative Commons:
Attribution: This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.
Share alike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.
Attribution no derivatives: This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
Non-commercial: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Non-commercial share alike: This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.
Non-commercial no derivatives: This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
(2) Please describe how the multimedia artifact you submitted for this assignment demonstrates your understanding of the following issues:
(a) Educational Fair Use: I used the fourth principle of Educational Fair Use to create a project for students to explore the Internet to find and use others' artifacts to their advantage. And in this, they will create their own artifacts by recreating, tweaking, or building upon the artifacts they collect.
(b) Creative Commons: This project provides a way for students to become exposed to and use creative commons licensing for their own artifact. They have to decide which licensing option suits them best, and decide how they want their own artifact used online.
(3) Please provide a self-evaluation of your artifact using the following criteria:
Creativity: I think that my project is fairly creative. They are not just replicating others' artifacts, but must tweak or recreate them using other media outlets. This gives the students creative freedom to do something they want.
Artifact design: I think I did a good job of designing a project that is both creative and educational. I used two different outlets, Podomatic and Blogger, one to describe and give instructions for the project (as well as external links, etc.) and the other to give the students an example of my own work.
Success in demonstrating knowledge of content: I think I successfully demonstrated my knowledge of the concepts, and also gave the students external links so that they can see for themselves what I'm blabbing on about.
Effort put forth: I put a lot of effort forward into creating this project. It is probably not as detailed as a lesson plan would be, as I did not provide an assessment or rubric, but I still put all of myself into creating this project with the hopes that I can actually implement it into my curriculum once I become a teacher.
Level of learning attained: This project is definitely for the higher level learning skills, and should be used with high school students. The students are not just regurgitating facts, but have to create something to show me (the teacher) that they understand the concept, but more than that, that they can use the concept in their own work.
example for Creating and Sharing project
This is a painting I created using several images I found on Google images. As this is an example, I am not providing attributions for the sources of these photos, but make sure you do! And be sure to explain all you learned from this project, according to the instructions on my podomatic site.
Images used to create this painting:
HAVE FUN AND GOOD LUCK!
Images used to create this painting:
HAVE FUN AND GOOD LUCK!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
RSS activity
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.
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.
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