Post 16: What I've Learned This Year

I really enjoyed reading the post "What I've Learned This Year" by Mr.McClung. I often think about what my first year of teaching will be like and to be honest, it is mixed with alot of excitement and a whole lot of intimidation! I hope that I can learn as much as Mr. McClung did in his first year. First off, he starts off by saying an important decision he made this year was to be positive. I agree- negativity will get you nowhere real fast. I like how he noted that we must let our audience drive us in our lessons rather than just doing whatever we want to do thinking that the students should just do it. You want to keep the students interested. We are there for them, to teach them, to try and understand them, and to be there for them. "NO LESSON IS EVER PERFECT. THE LESSON YOU TEACH AND THE ONE YOU PLAN ARE ALWAYS DIFFERENT." It is funny that he wrote this, because I sort of learned this yesterday in my Teaching Composition class. I had my first teaching demonstration that I worked really hard on and had my plan set in stone before we started, then as class began everything changed. My lesson took on a whole new perspective and at first I was disappointed, but then it all worked out for the better.
Communication is important not only in the workplace, but in your personal life as well. As much as I hate confrontation- it is always better to talk face to face rather than by email of note. Emails and notes can take on a different tone rather than expressing what you really meant for the person to read. It's best just to go talk and get it over with. You will feel much better too. Being Reasonable is something that will take me getting used to. I am a very impatient person, but I need to realize that sometimes it will take some students longer than others to get things. Listening to your students is the most important this McClung mentioned in my eyes. I have said before that students need to feel safe with you- they need to feel like they can talk to you about things. You are supposed to be a person they can look up to and look forward to learning from- not a person that is scary to them or in some cases mute to emotions.

Post 15: WIRED

Virgil Griffith debuted the WikiScanner last year that allows users to track edits (even if they are anonymous) that people make to Wikipedia entries and trace them to their source. He explains,"It does so by taking the IP address of the anonymous person who made the Wikipedia changes and identifying who owns the computer network from which the person made the edits." Predictions are that this tool will eventually make Wikipedia a more reliable source. People will be less willing to participate in editing if they are no longer anonymous. I personally do not think that Wikipedia will ever be a completely trusted source of information.

Post 14: The Last Lecture

I had the pleasure of reading Randy Pausch's "The Last Lecture" when it was first published and loved it, but when I watched the video I was reminded how much I truly enjoyed his lecture! He had a way of helping people to not only leave his presence thinking positively, but the ability to make you think about what he said for days to come. I love how he wanted to teach his children that dreams do come true, but it takes you working at them to make it happen. After I pondered thoughts about his lecture while I lay wide awake in my bed last night, I decided to write a blog about my own childhood dreams on my personal blog, "The Wonder Years".

I would have loved to have met him and learned from him as a teacher. He seemed to be such a caring person who truly cared about the people around him whether he knew them or not. He taught others to keep on even when the going got tough. There were a few quotes that stood out to me in his lecture: "Don't complain- just work harder," and "Be good at something- it makes you valuable." These are true to live by: complaining get you nowhere, but if you work harder you can move forward on to something better and finding something that you are good at does absolutely make you more valuable.

Randy was a hard worker and pushed others to be the same and work towards their goals even if they seemed so far out of reach. I thought the quote he used from a friend of his, "Don't bail; the best gold is at the bottom of barrels of crap," was hilarious but seriously true. That's how Randy lived.. when things got rough and seemed impossible, he kept digging for that gold and he eventually struck rich.

I think these methods should be brought to all classrooms- teachers should care enough to push their students along to bigger and better things. Teachers should not let students settle for average grades- they should help them exhale because they believe in them and anything is possible if you keep trying. His quote, "Loyalty is a two-way street," can be looked at as.. if you are a good teacher and believe in your students and take time to help them , they too in return will believe in themselves eventually and try harder to achieve their goals. It takes both.

Post 13: Fisch

If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write. That is the question asked by Karl Fisch on his blog page >here< .
The truth is that I am not really sure. This kind of goes back to my last post about who is a technologically literate teacher. I for sure think that you should evolve as a teacher by keeping up with what the world is doing and using updated tools to teach the children, but I don't think it makes you a bad teacher to not know so much about computers and such. I do think it could be considered ignorant to not give it a try. If you are just dead set on not being a part of new technology and sticking to the books and blackboard. If you are not willing to try new ways of teaching and exploration with new resources then you should not be a teacher.

Post 12: "It's Not about the Technology" by Kelly Hines

After reading Kelly Hines blog about technology and the 21st century teacher, I happened to scroll down a bit and see Dr. Strange's comment on her blog. I agree with him; the 21st century teacher would include a teacher who is technology savvy. My mother just learned how to do basic navigation on a computer- she was proud of herself (and I must admit I was too), when she learned how check her email and then I was just flat out astonished when she called me at work to learn how to set up a facebook account. She is 23 years older than me and much more knowledgeable, but I know way more about technology than she does. Kids these days are surrounded by computers, video games, i-pods, and more. Our parents were not. As time passes, technology is taking over more and more so in order to be a 21st century teacher, we are going to have to keep up with the Jones's of technology. Let me note that this does not make you a "good" teacher, it just makes you a better teacher because you are learning as you go and staying on the same level with your students. You can't just stick to your old self- the things that were taught to you while you were in school and that is it. You have to keep learning.

Post 11: Michael Welsch- A Vision of Students Today

I thought Welsch's video was cool. I found it to be very similar to my college experience. One thing in particular that I did not agree on personally was being on facebook or my computer doing other things during class. Yes, I will admit that I do check my facebook before class starts if it is in a classroom with accessible computers and I have nothing else to while waiting for class to get started, but believe it or not some students like myself do want to learn and do listen in class. BUT, in alot of cases that scenario is true. I was embarrassed when one of the professors at our College of Medicine came to me about one of my students playing on facebook and listening to their ipod the whole time class was taking place. I thought it was disrespectful, but the professor informed me that if I was to come by during the Fall semester and take a peak in his door window, that I would see at least 10 out of 20 medical students playing solitaire or browsing their facebook pages. That scares me quite frankly! Shouldn't our future doctors of America be paying attention in class?

Post 10: Plagerism and Copyright Rules

It is so easy for students to plagiarize while writing papers. Most students are not meaning to copy, but they do. You should always use your own thoughts and opinions while writing a paper or doing anything actually. If you did not come up with it, then you have to give credit to the person that did. It is not fair to take someone else's words or ideas and make them your own without giving props to that person. A couple of ways to avoid plagiarism is to take notes in your own words, interview different sources and make sure you use quotations when sharing their information with others. You can also paraphrase. Changing a few words on your paper and making it sound a little different does not count. You can get into some serious trouble for copying someone else's ideas and claiming them as your own... even if you did not intentionally do so. The complete version of the U.S. Copyright Law contains thirteen chapters explaining what will fly and what will not, but you can skip all of this by just playing it safe and sticking to your own words. You would not want someone else to steal your ideas and share them with others as if they came up with it. You would feel violated- like someone stole from you. Because they did. Don't be that person.

Post 9: Alternative Web Browsing

I am amazed at the alternatives available for the disabled when it comes to web browsing. I have never heard of any of these things except for maybe the screen modifiers. Software such as ZoomText and Magic help people who have low vision or learning dissabilities. I thought Jaws and Window Eyes were pretty neat because they actual read everything aloud that is on the computer screen in order for a person who is completely blind to know what is in front of them. People with limited hand use due to all different reasons can use the Via Voice or Dragon Naturally Speaking to browse. They can actually speak into a microphone their demands rather than use a keyboard. It is amazing how the web has been made accessible to people with dissabilities. I think it is great! Point blank- things have come a long way since Mary on "Little House and the Prarie," found out she was blind.

Post 8- Other Resources

I really enjoyed looking at this site: http://practicalprincipals.net . I found the resources they offered to be very beneficial. They had alot of good information to offer such as using different tools to add to your podcast/videocasts to make them more interesting. I specifically liked the "Bluebird's Classroom", which is a blog that a middle school teacher writes. They are blunt and quite funny to say the least. I thought the blog written today by the teacher about President Obama boring the students with his speech was interesting. As I watched the news the past few days, I have wondered why teachers and parents did not seem to be concerned with the students watching it, in fact they seemed aggravated. This blog helped me to understand the reasoning.
Also, I really liked the idea of the "Fruit Machine", which is a site that you can visit to play a learning game that helps students learn vocabulary words and their correct definitions. Depending on your age group of students, this could be very beneficial. Overall, it showed me that their are so many things out there, creative things that we can all use at teachers to help educate our students in not so boring ways. There is a whole other world out there that I never knew existed - a teacher's world. I love it.

Post 7- Podcast Improvements

The podcast/videocast that I watched that was done by students in last semester's EDM 310 course was not very good to me. The main change I would make is to have all of the individuals in the video facing the camera. To me, they should all be speaking to the persons viewing the video, not Dr. Strange. I could barely hear the one girl to the very right.. whom may I add that never even looked at the camera. I thought the material they spoke one was legit, but the video itself was not very good. Also, it seemed a little rehearsed with how they were reading off their information. It should have been more like a news cast.. where they use their papers to look down at every once in a while if they forget what they are going to say next... they should have looked at the camera as well as converse with each other.