final

I actually really enjoyed the final project--can't believe I'm saying that about a final. Wendy and Matthew were an absolute pleasure to work with, and everyone was focused and productive from beginning to end. I think our projects are doable and would be a very valuable experience for everyone involved. I particularly like the community component--I think that would motivate students to do their best work and foster a critical connection between school and community.

Nick Donofrio

I wanted to like him, I really did. Obviously a very bright, accomplished guy. (the introductory speakers made sure we understood just how much so) Amazing public speaking skills. And, a familiar cultural tilt--he reminded me of a few of my relatives! All the ducks were in order for a great gig--so why did I leave there disappointed?
I guess the main reason is b/c is lecture, while provocative, was very short on specifics, particularly with regard to innovation in education. I mean, what does all that techno mumbo jumbo vacuum tube this, nano-technology that really have to do with teaching English? I know he was trying to impress upon us the notion of thinking BIG, and I appreciate that, but I need some sort of connection between that and the realities of school bureaurcracy. That in the end, is what is going to govern our lives, like it or not. I want someone to teach me how to think BIG and actually have the ability to see it through given real life constraints. At this point in my life as well as my academic career, I've kind of had it up to here with theory. Theory is great, but it's like wishing I could lose 30 lbs without having to exercise. It's not reality. I hate to sound so negative, because enthusiasm is infectious, but only if what you're talking about is something I think has a prayer of happening. Until then, just tell me how to get my school district to give my students access to a wiki w/o 6 months of delays.

Second Life

Great, another way to waste countless hours in front of a monitor approximating real life instead of living it. No, no, I get it--there are lots of possibilities for educational applications of Second Life, but to be completely honest, I can't imagine the hoops I'd have to clear to bring this into my classroom. You can't believe what I went through to get my measly little wiki up and running. I feel for schools, I abhor how litigious American society has become. I know why they're fearful and tend to say 'no' far more than 'yes' to each and every new technology. But going up against old school administrators and/or board members to defend what looks an awful lot like a video game seems daunting, to say the least. I'm curious about the whole second life thing, but I need to learn more before I can sort out the logistics of putting it into my curriculum.

Copyright guidelines

Ouch! So many rules, so little time--my head hurts! Intellectual property is passed around so freely on the web, it's so easy to forget about ownership. I admit, I have a slightly anarchic tendency when it comes to this stuff, but I know the rest of the world doesn't share my laissez faire approach. To be completely honest, it never once occurred to me that using music behind my powerpoint slide shows required special permission. I always assumed, unless I was trying to profit by it and it was purely for educational purposes, I was in the clear. The whole thing is a big buzz kill, to be honest.
What did shock me was the public domain designation. I had no idea copyright protection only extends backward to 1923. It's all really confusing to me.

My wiki

Thought you might want to check out some of my students' work on my wiki. If you want to leave them a comment, I would GREATLY appreciate it!

http://virtualpenpals.wikispaces.com/

Excited about my wiki

Today was a very satisfying day in my fieldwork school. I was able to show my students the books they wrote and designed earlier in the semester uploaded onto the wiki site I created for them. It's actually the same wiki I started in computers class before the break, though I've been expanding on it slowly and will continue to do so as students complete assignments I've been giving them. Trying to get it up and running within the confines of the school's content-blocking software has been a slow and arduous process, though I'm now realizing that part of it goes with the territory. Virtually all of the teachers who responded to my survey complained about the school's AUP policy, and that it regularly interferes with what they are able to accomplish on the school's network. I can certainly see how it would make them crazy, and I touched on this in my classroom observation powerpoint (slide 6).
My fieldwork teacher has been incredibly generous about letting me 'experiment' on her kids, most of whom have significant behavior and/or learning problems. However, as I had anticipated, they have been extremely receptive to the idea of publishing their work on the web for the world to see. I've read several articles in English journals and literacy books about the motivation potential of web publishing for reluctant writers. For many of these kids, they often can't or won't produce classwork because it feels 'pointless' to them. But when they know it's going up on the web for other people to see and and comment on, they summon an energy I seldom see applied to more traditional writing tasks. It's been a valuable learning experience for me, and hopefully for them as well.

classroom observation debacle

Well, it all started out great. I created an online survey which I sent to every teacher in my fieldwork school. I got 23 responses- which I was very happy about. I compiled the data, and because it was so statistic heavy, thought powerpoint would be the best way to go so I could use all of their chart and graph templates. I learned A LOT--I had previously only known how to use powerpoint in the most rudimentary way, and I do see TONS of applications for it in direct instruction/lecture portions of a curriculum. I'm pretty proud of the visuals I created. I know for some of you it's old news, but as the name of this blog suggests--this old dog is late to the game. But better late than never...
The problems came in when my husband informed me that there would likely be compatibility issues between the Mac and Windows versions of the program, and as usual, he was right. The problem is, he told me as I was finishing the presentation around midnight last night. (long story--blackout) I came to school this morning to see what I wound up with, and I'm basically rebuilding the slide show all over again--cutting out of another class to do so. And I lost the sound file completely, despite sending it 3 different ways. Yes, this is all part of technology, and because most schools have Windows and my home pc is a Mac, it's a problem I better get used to dealing with. Still, I'm feeling incredibly frustrated and upset right now. Just needing to vent...

Photostory and MovieMaker-You too can make cool stuff!

So last night's class was very satisfying. Both Andrea and Wendy did a nice job demystifying Photostory and MovieMaker, and I left class feeling empowered to use these new toys (to me) for all sorts of fun stuff. I've seen my husband and kids use the Mac versions of these programs; the results are always so polished that I had assumed a lot of expertise went into their projects. Though I'm sure one can get fairly professional looking results with a little more experience and time, it's nice to know that the programs are user-friendly even on a rudimentary basis. That to me is good technology--programs that don't require countless hours of fruitless frustration before becoming useful to me. Class overall was a pleasure last night--good amount of empowering info!

Cute little podcast

My daughter's first grade class posted a podcast to their class website commemorating Obama's inauguration. If the little kids can do it, so can we!!! Check it out:
http://www.onteora.k12.ny.us/4370_7012111485/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=51926

The Wonderful, Wacky World of Wikis

I enjoyed tonight's class, mainly because I'm so enamored with wikis right now. I'm working to get one up for my mentor teacher, though we've already run into a technical roadblock. I think the possibilities are endless--I particularly like the idea of posting a wiki for each new unit, so it becomes a collaborative clearinghouse for students to return to for discussions, links to other resources, study/test prep;etc...I'm sure there are other ways to do this, but if a district doesn't have a Blackboard type of set-up, it seems like a cheap, relatively easy way to get at the same basic set up. Some people seem concerned with confidentiality, but for that, there's always email or google docs, and besides, I look at it like hanging students' work up in the classroom--it's a way for them to show off what they can do, and if they're self-conscious, they can either edit it or request that the teacher take it down. This is something I will most definitely be using, probably more than anything else we've worked on so far (except for Thinkfinity).

3 Ring Circus

So, we had 3 tasks to complete last night: acquainting ourselves with wikis, demonstrating our smartboard lessons, and completing a few tasks in Google Sketchup. Though each activity was valuable, once again I felt a little rushed and schizophrenic jumping from activity to activity in such short spurts. I barely had time to familiarize myself with what a wiki actually is, before I had to hunt one down and formulate a coherent opinion about it on Prof. M-G's wiki. Then on to Google sketchup, which is wildly intimidating on first glance, but is actually quite fun and fairly easy to use if you're not too specific about what your outcome needs to be. And the smartboard lessons, neither Matthew nor I had time to completely present our lessons to each other, let alone "play" with all the features of Smartboard.
I fully appreciate Prof's efforts to expose us to as much as possible in this one teeny weeny semester we have to get it all in. But as with the skype/ ichat class, I kind of felt a little frantic, and I don't absorb information all that well with a gun to my head and the clock loudly ticking in my ear. I need time to bump into walls a little bit, see what the possibilities are, before I'm expected to perform my own circus tricks. I guess this is a plea to slow it all down a little bit, because I fear it's all going to merge into an unintelligible, irretrievable mess in my easily overloaded head.
I have to say, the wiki thing is very exciting to me. I can see TONS of applications for this technology in an ELA classroom, and I fully intend to jump on it asap. As far as Google Sketchup, beyond our 21st century classroom assignment, I am having a very hard time thinking of ways to utilize this in an ELA class, but it sure is fun. I predict countless hours wasted away in front of this freebie. And Smartboard, well, I feel that to fully benefit from all it has to offer, i'm thinking a seminar is in order. There's just too much to absorb in two truncated class periods.

Dazed and Confused

I felt kind of dazed and confused last night--so many programs and possibilities flying at me that they all started to blend together into a technological tsunami. I do think there are many practical applications for Skype and video conferencing in classrooms-- kids and schools are so disconnected from the "real world," and with budget cuts, opportunities for field trips will undoubtedly be waning. It's a great way to get "experts" into the classroom, and to get kids out into the world without having to spend any precious funding. I guess I'm a little more skeptical about the file sharing Prof. modeled with her daughter via ichat. I think it would be AWESOME between professionals, but with all of the firewalls and blocks that schools routinely put on, I can see it really bogging down or falling apart as a classroom application. "Permission denied" for this, "access denied" for that." That's kind of what I'm envisioning...
I know we are the next generation, and we need to think outside of the box if we expect our students to learn that skill as well, but I think what prevents a lot of current teachers from attempting anything fancy like video conferencing are all of the technical impediments, like clearing it with the elusive technology person, the principal, the school board, letters to the parents, etc...I know that's how schools work, but human nature being as it is, I can see how teachers get frustrated and just take the well worn path of least resistence.
I know Prof. M-G kept noticing that I looked lost in class last night, and I think what she saw was the skepticism on my face. I'm trying to reconcile all of these fabulous ideas and possibilities with the realities of how schools operate on a daily basis. If I'm being completely honest, I'm anticipating being overwhelmed in the first few years of teaching, and to compound that by attempting to implement technologies that I have a VERY superficial understanding of myself, seems daunting, to say the least.
I want to drink the technology Kool-aid, I really do, don't get me wrong, but I think I need to be very selective about which ones I choose, b/c at the end of the day, there are only so many hours I can spend bumping into the walls trying to learn new things when there are piles of papers to be graded or written.

Smartboard meltdown

Well, I'm late getting to my own blog post, because I got completely bogged down on the SmartNotebook software, which made me feel anything but smart, frankly. I remembered all the things we did in class, and how I wanted them to function in my own lesson, but I couldn't keep all of the steps straight. The help menu within the program is totally lame, and slogging through the tutorials to get a specific answer is cumbersome and a major time sucker. Relief came at last from the message boards--some kindly techie at last pointed me in the right direction, with the assistance of my husband. Without both of them, frankly I would have been screwed on this project. The SmartNotebook doesn't seem as friendly with the Mac OS, even after I hunted down the Teacher Activity Gallery, the program was freezing up and acting funky all day and night. It was, to be sure, a huge exercise in frustration. Today was better, and by the time I was finished with my lesson, I had gained a modest comfort level with the interface. I'm still massively confused about how to make all the little gimmicks work, I think a full seminar would be necessary before I would feel comfortable breaking out the Smartboard in front of a room full of kids. I'm still kind of afraid of it, frankly, and I also still feel it's usefulness in an ELA classroom, at least the one I envision, is more limited than with other subjects.

Very late post-sorry!

Got so busy with the podcast, neglected my poor little blog. Last week's Thinkfinity class was extraordinarily helpful. Perusing all of those delectable lesson plans, I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning, overwhelmed by the big pile of presents and wondering which one to open first. I still can't quite get over it. I could get lost for days on those partner sites, and pretty much did during class. In fact, from occasionally popping my head up from the screen, I'm pretty sure everyone else was doing the same thing. How could you not? So many great ideas--I'm thinking a great feature would be some kind of user ratings system, like they have on recipe sites, where people can post a rating 1-10 or something, so other teachers can know how successful a particular lesson has or has not been. I know there are a lot of variables, but still, it would be one way to pare down the overwhelming array of options.

2-5-Podcast Mania!!!

I had an absolute blast last night creating the little practice podcast. I freely admit that when Audacity first showed up on my monitor and I saw all of those sound waves and buttons, I started to panic a little bit. But the tutorial was well-written and easy to follow, and sitting with my group partner Patrick was a godsend. He claims to be a techno-phobe, but his instincts are much better than mine and together we muddled our way through it. Initially, I thought this would be a fun little exercise that I would never actually use, but now seeing how easy it really is, I can imagine offering this as a creative project option for my students. The one concern I have is how much time I would need to carve out of my English content to devote to software issues, and whether that would even be considered appropriate by watchful administrators in my pre-tenure years.
I am looking forward to creating our podcast and can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with as well. Great class last night!

1/29 My thoughts

I freely admit I left class last night feeling a little frazzled, primarily because of my confusion with Office 2007. Is it me, or is it completely counter-intuitive?? I can't find anything anymore. I work on a Mac and I always have, and so PCs have always freaked me out a little bit. Thankfully, over the years Mac OS and Windows have become increasingly similar. But the 2007 Office interface looks NOTHING like the Mac version, and I can't "feel my way" through it like I used to. Had it not been for the kindness of Liz who had the unfortunate job of telling me where everything is, I don't think I would have been able to keep up with the assigned tasks. And I can't even practice at home, because I'm on a Mac. Ugh!
I came home and discussed the Podcast assignment with my husband, who is a total computer geek. He started talking about Garageband and all the great things I could do with it, and I told him we'd be using Audacity, which he'd never heard of. He assured me that it doesn't matter that Garageband is a Mac application because a podcast is web-based, which thoroughly confuses me. If I start working on a file at home and try to bring it in to class to modify it, it won't matter that it was created in a Mac-based program? I'm confused, hopefully he'll straighten me out.
About the quiz templates we worked on---I'm not completely sure I'll ever be using that particular Excel quiz format as an English teacher. I don't plan on assessing my students in that type of short answer format, but you never know. Also, based on what I've observed in my fieldwork, it doesn't seem that schools around here have the resources to routinely test students on PCs. There are commonly only a few computers per classroom, so it would seem that testing a whole class would take longer than standard pen and paper. I assume it could work for independent practice/homework, but then they could just look up the answers. I'd have to think about potential applications, I'm sure it would be useful for something in an English classroom, I'm just not sure what exactly.
I do like the idea of incorporating technology into the curriculum as much as possible, because I know it is the format most comfortable for my future students. I do plan on requiring my students to create and keep reading journals in the form of blogs--I have talked to current English teachers and parents who assert that simply by virtue of the electronic format, kids are much more excited about journal-writing. Whatever it takes....

Day One in Computers

This is the class to which I've most been looking forward this semester. I have TONS of fabulous ideas swirling around in my head for future lesson plans that will rely on multimedia, and I'm anxious to learn how to make them a reality. I know that in order to reach my future students, I need to meet them where they live and are most comfortable, and my only regret is that I have only one semester with a friendly guide to help me figure it all out. Honestly speaking, I felt a little anxious before tonight's class, expecting to be the only student not intimately familiar with all the "new toys." But the class seems very user-friendly and not nearly as intimidating as I'd feared. I think it's going to be a great semester.

So here it is

My big debut as a blogger!