Chapter 10 and 11

So Chapter 10 is titled "promoting success for all students through technology," and before reading a word of this chapter the first thing I can think of is that I'm sick of seeing everyone get trophies for simply for participating.  But, this isn't sports, this is education, and so every students success is as important as ours is as teachers.

One thing in chapter 10 that stuck out to me was the technology for teaching diverse students.  As a prospective ESL teacher, I know the importance that technology has on ELLs and their development of not only the english language but of their content knowledge as well.  Whats great about technology today is that it often offers an array of translations so for those students who's english isn't as developed as others they can still grasp the concepts of the content.  Having been in an ESL classroom observing all semester I have also noticed that when technology is involved in the lesson the level of participation among the ELL's goes up.

Chapter 11's standout for me was how learning portfolios promote student involvement in assessment.  For me, portfolios were always an end of the year project for an English class.  Yaknow, it had a piece of poetry you were proud of, a short story that was required, and 5 other miscellaneous pieces of writing.  What was great about them though was you could decorate it ANY way you wanted.  Print it on patterned paper, use scrapbooking stickers, the plastic sleeves to protect the paper, it was a piece of work at the end of the year that you were supposed to be proud of.  I think whats great about portfolios is it leaves so much room for diversity among the students.  No two portfolios are going to be the same, and at the end of the day, we as teachers can hold our students accountable for their grades.  You didn't do your portfolio, or there is little to no effort, then your grade is a direct reflection of that.  Assessments like portfolios allow students basically to tell us the grade they want and deserve.

Chapter 7 and 8

So.  Digital learning games.  Pretty awesome huh.  Math Blaster was my favorite game!  I also really enjoyed the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.  Digital educational games can be a life saver in or out of the classroom.  As an only child who grew up with her grandparents, I spent a ton of hours on the computer playing computer games.  When I was younger they were Disney games, like The Lion King, Pochahontas, Barbie etc; However, as I got older, my grandparents invested in more educational games.  While I never did see an improvement in my math, because I still suck, I did improve my WPM with Mavis.  So what can we do as teachers to ensure that our students enjoy their digital educational games and to make sure that they're learning from them.  With the addition of all the mobile technology in classrooms (i.e. iPads and tablets) educational games are a big market for a lot of creators and for us as educators.  The availability of all these games and apps makes it easier for students to access all parts of their content both in the class and at home.  The one problem I seem to find in the use of these digital games is that it creates less social interaction.  School is supposed to help mold our children in all areas of life; to be social, to be educated and to be empowered.  Are we failing them by implementing the use of these digital games?

group meeting 10/29

today our group met and we have come up with the following:

our topic is bullying.  Ideally we would like to interview a child who is a bullyer and one who is the bullied.  Identify why they bully and how each of them feel.

we want to bring attention to the true definition of bullying, all of the places and instances it can occur.

Some questions we want to address are what can the children to about bullying and how can they help stop it .


for our video we have and idea to use note cards in the same manner as amanda todd, a national bulying case that led to suicide.

Virtual Field Trips got me like WOAH!

HOLY. CRAP.

I literally just spent fifteen minutes staring at the streets of Florence.  Beautiful Firenze.  Reminiscing about the time I spent there, remembering the emotions I felt when I stood next to that vacant soccer field, and the left turn we made to go see the house where one of the Italian greats died.  This,  this is mind-blowing.  Google never ceases to amaze me.

What I think I could use this for in my classroom is to introduce all the students to the places of interests of the countries they come from.  I might use this as a unit in the beginning of the school year, part of the "getting to know you," weeks of school.  While I have so much desire to teach my students English and help them establish a sense of identity as an American, I still want them to feel proud of themselves as a citizen of whatever country they come from.  If you're spanish and I show the Santiago de Compostella section, be proud!  If you're Chinese and I bring us to The Great Wall, be proud!  This is a great educational tool to bring students to other places of the world so they can get a sense of the culture their classmates are coming from.

I think leaving class tonight I'm way more comfortable with the idea of a web quest and using digication to create it versus a regular word document and an accompanying powerpoint.  I'm excited to make mine and be as creative and content conscious as possible.

Chapter 5 and 6

What if I told you that theres more to the internet than Google.  What? Theres more than Google? You're crazy.  That's what you'd probably say.  Maybe not you, but a normal non St. John's grad student.  But there is.  There is more to the world than Google.  While Google is the fourth bookmark on my favorites bar, and it has become a huge staple in our generation and society (it's even been added to the dictionary as a verb; To Google) there are other search engines out there on that wondrous world wide web.  This week chapter five talks about search engines and the purpose they serve.

I will be the first to admit that I rely on Google for almost every question I have that I don't have an answer to.  And ya know what?  Google gives me one.  Google is the worlds most popular search engine, so why am I making such a big deal about it not being the center of our technological world? Well, because we as educators need to ensure that our students don't rely strictly on Google or the answers it may deliver via Wikipedia.  Instead of searching through 3, 5, or 10 pages of Google results, we should teach our students that if the question(s) they posed have returned unanswered that they need to search else where.  In an ironic kind of way, this is almost in line with the common core in that they need to be more cognitively active in their education.  Don't stop if you don't find the answer the first time...keep looking and keep searching until you find an answer you believe to be suitable.  Something that may prove to be a best practice is to keep a chart/list of search engines other than Google so your students have some guidance about where to go when Google fails to deliver.

Top 10 Search Engines

Chapter 6 this week talked about one of my favorite classroom activities, virtual field trips!  Now, I'm in the TESOL program and so something like this tends to provide great access to worldly places; places we can't physically take our students.

In regards to this, I'm going to share an experience.  Last semester I observed with an 8th grade ESL class and their teacher was spending a week taking them on a virtual tour of Ellis Island!  It safe to say that even though plenty of us have grown up in New York, the chances that we've all been to Ellis Island are pretty slim, especially after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Ellis Island Interactive Field Trip

The reason I share this with you all is that its a great tool to use for an ESL classroom or even for a native english classroom.  A unit like this will bring you amazing participation and stories from your students on their actual immigration to the US or a background on how their families came to be, which will support the use of our ELL's verbal L2.

Take away 10/8

Leaving class today I feel kind of frustrated.  Seeing how great my peers videos came out and I'm thinking about how lackluster mine is.  However, pushing through that, I feel that the videos created a lot of good, stimulating, meaningful conversation between us.  I'm also leaving feeling much better about this WebQuest, now that there is an outline and structure to it, I feel like I'll be able to execute it well.  I of course have some anxiety about completing the template because work has been so demanding this month, but I'm confidant that this time around planning ahead will do me some good.

Chapter Four

So, chapter four is entitled "designing lessons and developing curriculum with technology."  Obviously, its about how technology is going to help us in our lesson planning.  What gets me about this is that how do we know that teachers aren't solely relying on the internet for their curriculum?  As teachers, and even as students, we hear all the time that we shouldn't rely on wikipedia, or from online sources, but that we need to dig deep into the archives of the library to find more sources for our papers, etc.  But, how do you tell a teacher that they HAVE to make their own work sheet, webquest, lesson plan?

While I'm pessimistic about teachers using any and everything that they find online as a means to get out of creating something on their own, I am optimistic about my own personal use of technology in not only lesson planning but in my classroom as a whole.  If you've ever done one of the color personality tests, you'll understand the reference, but I'm totally a Gold.  Everything has to be in order, promptly on time, organized and efficient, so what I'm most excited for is to be able to create an online grading system where my students who take a test or hand in a paper on a friday won't have to wait until monday for their grade.  They can have it Saturday when I'm done grading.

I am also super excited to be a 21st century teacher because we have access to so many advanced technologies.  Apps that we can use on ipads and phones, software that makes plans and curriculum maps easier to design and create.  My favorite is the common core app from the App store.  I use it when designing my lesson plans for classes here at St. John's.  It makes it simple to find the standards and to filter what you're looking for based on grade level and subject matter.   Since common core is something we all have to deal with in our program I suggest everyone download it!