Small World

I read an edublog not too long ago, and oddly enough, it was something we were discussing in class, thanks to Alex (who posted it on Diigo). It was about the NYT article is algebra necessary. I happened to stumble upon a math blog (Mr. Meyer comments on NYT algebra article) just about that. It was a very short blog, and it seemed to be written in frustration, but Dan Meyer brings up a good point: “The more interesting question is, “How should we define Algebra in 2012 and how should we teach it?” This really struck me. There are so many people quick to find faults in everything around them, but never bother to suggest improvements or even ask questions how to improve something.

I also see how technology has really brought the world together. This information is everywhere, and everyone talks about it. Like how we talked about it in our class, and someone blogged about it, which I’m sure others will read, and I’m sure other math gurus are all over this. I think it’s great how technology can reach everyone, making the world that much smaller.

The other blog I read was 10 things in school that should be obsolete. I thought  it was interesting to see this perspective, for schools as a whole, as buildings, as functioning mini-societies. I’ve never thought as corridors, bathrooms, or gyms being something that could be improved upon. I definitely agree, or at least relate to the multi-use spaces and classroom environments. Add it on to our list of challenges! 

System Overload

Class started out great. There was a lot of cool stuff being introduced here. What really resonated with me was when Kristin warned us about not calling something stupid, and not to immediately dismiss the things that they are teaching us. I had to stop and think whether I did that. I hope I didn’t, but I do recall in one my blogs, or perhaps one of my comments to another blog mentioning that what we’re learning here are tools that we put in our toolbox. It’s good to know what’s out there and what our options are, and then we can decide for ourselves what we want to use or what is helpful to our situations. That being said, I was introduced to a lot of cool things today. I really wish had more time to play with it and really get familiar with it that it can be more helpful, and quick. It’s kind of like work, where you need help on a project, but it’ll take more time to train someone and inform them of all the project details than it is for you to just do it yourself. Catch22. Time is what’s killing me. The time we’ll have in August is quickly dwindling. I digress. 


My group was great. I really enjoyed working with people outside of my cohort. They were all so nice and so helpful. Chelsea was a sweetheart and held my hand through the fast paced lecture while my computer was trying to keep up. My computer is old, ancient in technology years. Anyway, although I’ve used Skype and some of the Google features, I learned quite a bit more about them. As well as Diigo, Evernote, Dropbox, Google Reader/Alert/News, JotFrom… so many! And there’s so much you can do with each of these programs. It’s a bit overwhelming when they’re all given to you in the same day, with a slow computer, but wow. What else is out there? With so many cool toys, we need more time to play.

Feeling a Bit Weebly

Class with Kristin

We started setting up our portfolio in class today. Well, not the actual portfolio, but the tool we’ll be using for our portfolio. I had a lot of fun doing it. It was an easy program and it was very intuitive. I wanted to test out all the themes and all the buttons and make my practice portfolio snazzy, but there was no time for snazziness. In all honesty, I didn’t think of weebly as a portfolio site, I thought of it more of a CTools, but for high school and middle school students. It’s where they will get all their information for the class, announcements, assignments, important dates or calendar, updates… etc. I’m still unsure of the student portfolio though. I think it’s a good idea, but I’m not yet convinced that it’s something I’ll definitely have in my class.  

Class with Jeff
We started off with a translation game. I was pretty excited to figure it out, so I jumped right into it without thinking why we were doing this. I eventually started working with Mike and Lisa to figure out a few things that were unclear. Like the shaking hands in the shape of a heart. Heh. Once we started the discussion about this, Erin made a comment about how it would have been helpful to her if she had an objective. That reminded me of one of my engineering classes where the prof asked us on the first day of class to calculate how many ping pong balls were could fit in a room of so-and-so dimensions. While everyone started working diligently, I raised my hands and asked why we would need to do that. As it turns out, that was the point of the exercise, is to question its validity and usefulness. X years later, I’ve become the other students. It’s important to know why you’re doing something and what goal it will help you accomplish, either in the long run or short term. But then we go back to gaming, it’s just fun. That puzzle was fun (yes, puzzles are fun). So the takeaway here is that learning can be fun. You can use fun things to help students learn. And I would like to follow Jeff’s advice to think of my classroom as a type of game, and develop rules for that game so everyone can play. I just have to figure out a way to do it effectively.

Game On!!!

Good Video Games and Good Learning by James Paul Gee

How interesting. This guy just broke apart what makes a video game good into sections and described why they were good and what they had to do with learning. He was pretty organized in doing so, numbering his principles good games incorporate. For this reading, I would take notes in the margin. Once I got about half way through, I realized I was summarizing each paragraph with a concept we learned in a MAC class. Scaffolding, praising effort, individualization, the importance of practice and mastery, literacy, social and personal dynamics are all notes I wrote down in the margins relating to each one of his principles. Those relations all came from a videogame. I’m always happy to read something good about what most people perceive to be bad (for something I think to be neutral or that should be used in modesty). It reminded me of an article I read a couple of years ago about his son and video games. (It's a good read, a short one, I recommend it My Four-Year-Old Son Plays GTA). So what is it about some things that make us jump to conclusions? I like this little read, made me open my mind just a little bit more. What other possibilities are out there?

TED Talk – Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world

I’ve heard of the 10,000 hour theory of success, and I think it was related to The Beatles, why they were so good, but I never thought of actually applying it to anything. I think Jane is brilliant for using this theory to something that already exists, just shift it in a different direction. I don’t know if it will work, but I think it’s worth the attempt. I think she has a newer TED talk, she got into an accident and damaged her brain and she invented a video game to cope with the pain, and more or less healed herself. I guess there are studies into that. Don’t quote me on that… I might be mistaken. Either way, I have mad respect for her.

Digital Portfolios and Curriculum Maps

I read this last, and honestly, it was tough to get through. The ideas were drawn out and it was in your typical textbook like organization. However, the information was pretty good. I like the ideas of portfolios, especially for the reason for the student to invest in something that they can be proud of. Let’s face it, how many times did we not put the extra effort in because we’ll just turn it in and that’s that? At the same time, I felt a little overwhelmed. Teaching is so hard as it is, and so time consuming. There is never enough hours in a day, or days in a school year to do everything you want to do or the curriculum wants you to do, and classes are getting bigger and the staff is getting smaller, and there’s all these other ideas out there too that you can incorporate in your classroom. A lot of them are good ideas, but really? Does anyone consider time when they come up with these fabulous ideas? Maybe I’m overwhelmed in general and can’t look at this quite objectively; maybe it’s not so bad time wise. I guess it’s one of those things that I’ll place in my toolbox and save for later. We’ll see...

What a Day!

Lesson Planning with a Librarian
This was a very interesting exercise, and very useful indeed. My team was awesome. Pat was amazing, she was so helpful. One thing that she said saddened me. She said that she almost never gets projects from the science department, and that was because of the curriculum didn’t give the teachers time for wiggle room. The team hammered out a lesson plan, and a good one too. Stephen brought up a very good point in class about how difficult lesson planning is. Something to keep in mind. Also, I never knew how much librarians did, or could do; so much behind the scenes that I’ve never heard about. Was it like that when I was in school? It’s interesting how we all picture school differently and how we bring our own experiences to teaching. The more I learn, the less I know. 


Podcasts
How cool. I’ve heard of podcasts before and I’ve listened to plenty of them, but I never really thought about creating one or just how useful they can be. I don’t know how I felt about creating one though. The objective was to create one so we’re familiar with it and are able to make one. Done. That was pretty easy. However, me being myself, I spent way too much time on it (not that you can tell), because it’s pretty low quality. I was going through all this music, and it was all starting to sound the same. I got into making a good podcast as opposed to the idea of just knowing how to make the podcast. Which reminded me of the last class, or maybe something that we read, everything is blending together. Anyway, someone sometime warned us about assigning something that will take away from the objective of the assignment itself and the student will concentrate on making their product good or cool (yep, that’s me, I get into it). But it made me realize something about myself: it’s not that I don’t know technology, I’m just not fluent at it. It takes me a little longer, and I’m not as good, but I’m still capable of utilizing it properly. So that’s why I kind of gave up on making it awesome. I babble. Job is done, I got the point. But it was cool, too cool. Now I have one more thing to use to avoid studying.

Short but Sweet

Once again, I roll my eyes at reading an article about how lawmakers are wasting time and tax payer money. If you couldn’t tell, I’m quite opinionated on this topic. I personally don’t drink pop, so my views and opinions may not be warranted as this law would not affect me in the least. I don’t drink pop because it’s my choice. It’s my choice because I am well informed of the effects of it. I personally believe that no one should be drinking that much pop, but laws like this bother me because they only mask the underlying issue. It annoys me that so much time and money is spent on a solution that doesn’t attack the heart of the problem. Now that’s out of my system...

On to teaching! I’ve struggled with coming up with incorporating this into a lesson plan, as far as Physics anyway. Every idea that came into my head pertained to English, government, debate, biology, chemistry, health, and even foreign language and math. Honestly, the only physics ideas I came up with had to do with destroying the article like “what force was needed for me to rip the paper?” and “at what angle did I have to throw the crumpled paper in order to land in the garbage can?”, etc. 

After some struggle, I asked Jeff if this assignment had to relate to our field and he said no. So I’ve decided to make it easier on myself and pick an idea I already came up with for the other subjects… let’s say math, my minor. My first math idea was percentages. I would bring different containers of different sizes to class and have the students calculate the percentage of the daily recommended value of calorie intake in each container. Perhaps even compare it to other drinks such juice, milk, water, sports drinks, and energy drinks. In assignment would involve tasks such as looking up what the daily recommended value of calorie intake is, multiplication, division, as well as obtaining the knowledge (and hopefully the consciousness of) what the students are putting into their body every time they drink a pop. As far as ingredients (especially diet pop and energy drinks), I’ll leave that up to the biology and chemistry teachers. 

Class Reflection - June 29

Why I Want to Teach

In a way, I'm glad they asked us write down the answer to that question. I'd really like to see if my reasons have evolved from the application process to graduation. I feel like I've never given the same answer twice. Perhaps answers relating to one another, but more finely tuned every time I answer that question. On the other hand, I'm sick of that question. I sometimes feel like I'm being challenged, like my judgment is being questioned. I know that's not their intent, and it's good to constantly question what you're doing and why you're doing it and make sure you're in it for the right reasons. I don't mean to complain. I know what I'm getting myself into, or at least I think I do. Sigh...

Sheskey Reading

I would have to say that I’ve thought more about this reading and our class discussion about it more than any other assignment and topic we’ve learned about thus far. Having grown up in a school system where computers were sparse and the internet was nonexistent, it was difficult for me to imagine a class that incorporated technology. I welcomed the idea, but just couldn’t grasp it. So reading the article opened my eyes to the possibilities and benefits and just how well technology could be incorporated into today’s classes, in any subject. I was excited to learn how to make technology and class work in harmony. Granted, no system is perfect, but the positive aspects were intriguing, and the negative aspects posed a challenge. As we discussed this article and everyone put their own experiences into it, it seemed to be such a great thing… for extroverts. We were all riding that train. I would assume everyone in the program is an extrovert, to a degree. I can’t imagine a shy teacher that kept to his or her self. Anyway, it seemed we were all excited about breaking kids out of the old-school school norms. Then, out of left field (or so it seemed to me), Rayhan expressed how she would have struggled in this type of situation as opposed to flourish in it. Whoa. I felt like I was just slapped in the face. I should have known better. I was an introvert. I was the type that didn’t want any one but the teacher to see my work. I would have done just fine in “Class A” in Dr. Charles’ class if need be, and was actually quite successful in those types of classes. In fact, I still shy away from a camera. However good something is, it’s not good for others. At that point, my thoughts have gone from technology in the classroom to the individual students in the classroom. Will we ever find a system that works for everyone? Do find the best system and label it the best system merely because it works for most? We’ll never get just one kind of students. Maybe this is the biggest challenge for us. We are all going into a system, although improving is in construction. We have to roll with the punches, which is a lot easier said than done. How do we benefit the students without hurting others? Although my reaction to the reading was intended to be towards technology, my thoughts have been consumed by the uniqueness of students and the blanket policies that are in effect in today’s school system. That being said, I’m looking forward to learning about how to run an effective classroom for each and every student, and the technology part too.