http://twitter4teachers.pbworks.com/English-and-Communication-Arts-Teachers
connects people to real teachers on twitter
http://www.planetebook.com/
free online books (could use this to study for West E)
http://www.free.ed.gov/index.cfm
free lesson plans from the US gov
http://www.scrapblog.com/
online scrapbooking
http://youthvoices.net/
place where students distribute/discuss their digital work online - teacher/student collab; really enjoy reading some of the students' works.
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
where all of the above links were found
http://writingfix.com/
writing resource for teachers/students/writers
http://www.corbettharrison.com/seven_elements.htm
http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/Home.html
an experiment in teaching literature in a different way w/google maps
http://www.shmoop.com/literature/
source for students/teachers to help inspire passion about literature; fun, engaging and relatable material
http://www.freerice.com/index.php
for each lit answer you get right Free Rice donates 10 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to end hunger
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Reflections on BEDUC 566 #4
Last week in class we shared our observations with children using technology. For most people it seemed that the children they had observed had had positive interactions with technology. A couple of issues were brought up: for children who are not exposed to technology (such as computers, internet), how can we help them so that they can assimilate into a technolocially dominant world?, and also an idea about courtesy/manners in the digital world, why do parents ignore the importance of teaching their children how to interact with others online? As Michael pointed out, there needs to be some parental involvement so kids are clearly misbehaving online (foul/sexually explicit language in WOW).
What I gained most from class last week was a definite urge to make sure I address online manners if I can fit it in somehow to a lesson. Reflecting on Outliers (esp the article about Bill Gates and Joy, etc), I am thinking, how can I create opportunities for my kids, so that they can find a passion and be successful?
For class on Thursday this week we are supposed to have picked our technology articles. I am hoping that we will get more of an idea of what is expected of us in regards to our papers.
What I gained most from class last week was a definite urge to make sure I address online manners if I can fit it in somehow to a lesson. Reflecting on Outliers (esp the article about Bill Gates and Joy, etc), I am thinking, how can I create opportunities for my kids, so that they can find a passion and be successful?
For class on Thursday this week we are supposed to have picked our technology articles. I am hoping that we will get more of an idea of what is expected of us in regards to our papers.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
NR Understanding Youth - N&T ch 12 annotations
Understanding Youth: Adolescent Development for Educators
Ch. 12 : "The Educational Ecology of Adolescent Development"
Nakkula & Toshalis go into Bronfenbrenner's human ecology: "human development [is] comprehensively grounded in contextual interactionism." They explain 4 of the environmental contexts: Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem & Macrosystem.
Margaret Beale Spencer researched how black students perceived cultural influences on them. She is focused on "how" youth interpret cultural influences, from their perspectives rather than just looking at the different systems. Spencer's is a more active approach. It allows teachers/ parents, etc to enter into the struggle with the student and assist, rather than standing at a distance...examining.
Topic of resistance. Herbert Kohl -- "The response [resistance] emerges as youth confront the fact that what they are being asked to learn sometimes entails a denial of what they may already know." p 257
Janelle Dance's 3 gangstas: the hardcore, the hardcore wannabe & the hard enough. Teachers often clump them all together. Teachers must make an effort to tell the difference and learn the language of the street.
Favorite quote: "Humor, patience, and trust are invaluable resources here and are frequently the characteristics students look for in adults they feel possess a certain 'with-it-ness,' who 'get' what it means to be an adolescent today." p260
Ch. 12 : "The Educational Ecology of Adolescent Development"
Nakkula & Toshalis go into Bronfenbrenner's human ecology: "human development [is] comprehensively grounded in contextual interactionism." They explain 4 of the environmental contexts: Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem & Macrosystem.
Margaret Beale Spencer researched how black students perceived cultural influences on them. She is focused on "how" youth interpret cultural influences, from their perspectives rather than just looking at the different systems. Spencer's is a more active approach. It allows teachers/ parents, etc to enter into the struggle with the student and assist, rather than standing at a distance...examining.
Topic of resistance. Herbert Kohl -- "The response [resistance] emerges as youth confront the fact that what they are being asked to learn sometimes entails a denial of what they may already know." p 257
Janelle Dance's 3 gangstas: the hardcore, the hardcore wannabe & the hard enough. Teachers often clump them all together. Teachers must make an effort to tell the difference and learn the language of the street.
Favorite quote: "Humor, patience, and trust are invaluable resources here and are frequently the characteristics students look for in adults they feel possess a certain 'with-it-ness,' who 'get' what it means to be an adolescent today." p260
NR The New American Middle School - Wiles & Bondi annotations
Understanding young people
"A growing body of knowledge shows that what happens to students between the ages of 10 and 14 determines not only their future success in school, but success in life as well." p 28
Wiles & Bondi use Piaget's "formal operations" theory to explain why young adolescents are so self conscious. Due to their newly acquired ability to think about many alternatives can cause adolescents to interpret situations much more complexly than they should be. They become much more aware of themselves and assume that everyone else is paying as much attention to them as they are...making them self conscious.
W&B provide a table for Piaget's "Stages of Development: Middle Years" p 30
ages 7-11: "Thinks out problems previously worked out. Logical thought as evidenced by genuine classification, learning to organize objects into a series; reversing operations (ex. arithmetic)."
ages 11-15: "Comprehends abstract concepts as evidenced by ability to form ideas and reason about the future, ability to handle contrary-to-fact propositions, and ability to develop and test hypotheses."
ages 11-12: substage A prep stage
ages 13-15+ : substage B
W&B work to explain some bad behaviors of adolescents by applying the "imaginary audience" idea. Ex. loud talking, strange clothes, vandalism in school. All of these things are done with audience reaction in mind.
Adolescents tend to believe they are special and will not get in trouble for their acts.
"Adolescent idealism" as it relates to hypocrisy: ability for adolescents to have high moral principles but not act on them=intellectual immaturity, not lack of morals. As youth mature they begin to see the need to work towards ideals. How is this useful knowledge for educators? Educators can better determine punishment (not too harsh, not too soft) if they are properly aware of why adolescents act up.
Charts for physical, social & emotional development provided. Transition and difference are emphasized.
I really enjoyed this poem: "Who Am I? / I have many things I want to say but --/ No one will listen./ I have many things I want to do but --/ No one will let me./ There are so many places I want to go but --/ No one will take me./ And the things I write are corrected but -- No one reads them./ Who am I? -- A Sixth Grader."
Because of adolescents' poor behavior many parents abdicate their duties and depend on schools. Youth need and desire a close family and need the security it brings. This is the worst time for parents to abandon their children.
"A growing body of knowledge shows that what happens to students between the ages of 10 and 14 determines not only their future success in school, but success in life as well." p 28
Wiles & Bondi use Piaget's "formal operations" theory to explain why young adolescents are so self conscious. Due to their newly acquired ability to think about many alternatives can cause adolescents to interpret situations much more complexly than they should be. They become much more aware of themselves and assume that everyone else is paying as much attention to them as they are...making them self conscious.
W&B provide a table for Piaget's "Stages of Development: Middle Years" p 30
ages 7-11: "Thinks out problems previously worked out. Logical thought as evidenced by genuine classification, learning to organize objects into a series; reversing operations (ex. arithmetic)."
ages 11-15: "Comprehends abstract concepts as evidenced by ability to form ideas and reason about the future, ability to handle contrary-to-fact propositions, and ability to develop and test hypotheses."
ages 11-12: substage A prep stage
ages 13-15+ : substage B
W&B work to explain some bad behaviors of adolescents by applying the "imaginary audience" idea. Ex. loud talking, strange clothes, vandalism in school. All of these things are done with audience reaction in mind.
Adolescents tend to believe they are special and will not get in trouble for their acts.
"Adolescent idealism" as it relates to hypocrisy: ability for adolescents to have high moral principles but not act on them=intellectual immaturity, not lack of morals. As youth mature they begin to see the need to work towards ideals. How is this useful knowledge for educators? Educators can better determine punishment (not too harsh, not too soft) if they are properly aware of why adolescents act up.
Charts for physical, social & emotional development provided. Transition and difference are emphasized.
I really enjoyed this poem: "Who Am I? / I have many things I want to say but --/ No one will listen./ I have many things I want to do but --/ No one will let me./ There are so many places I want to go but --/ No one will take me./ And the things I write are corrected but -- No one reads them./ Who am I? -- A Sixth Grader."
Because of adolescents' poor behavior many parents abdicate their duties and depend on schools. Youth need and desire a close family and need the security it brings. This is the worst time for parents to abandon their children.
NR The Process of Education - Bruner annotations
3 stages of the intellectual development of a child:
1. preoperational stage - trial-and-error in nature; child cannot grasp the concept of reversibility; merely active learning
2. stage of concrete operations - operational learning; child can do trial-and-error in its head (internal); logic of relations; only immediate present reality
3. stage of formal operations - ability to operate on hypothetical propositions
According to Bruner, when a person learns any subject matter there are 3 processes of learning involved. These processes combine to make an "episode" of learning. (curriculum unit)
3 processes of learning:
1. acquisition - collection of new info; usually it is info that contradicts what a person believed intuitively
2. transformation - application of new knowledge towards a new problem
3. evaluation - a check to see if new knowledge fit the different task
There is a problem with depending on grades as the only reward for learning. How are children going to self motivate when they graduate and no longer receive grades? Idea of "spiral curriculum"
Favorite quote: "If the hypothesis with which this section was introduced is true - that any subject can be taught to any child in some honest form - then it should follow that a curriculum ought to be built around the great issues, principles, and values that a society deems worthy of the continual concern of its members." p52
1. preoperational stage - trial-and-error in nature; child cannot grasp the concept of reversibility; merely active learning
2. stage of concrete operations - operational learning; child can do trial-and-error in its head (internal); logic of relations; only immediate present reality
3. stage of formal operations - ability to operate on hypothetical propositions
According to Bruner, when a person learns any subject matter there are 3 processes of learning involved. These processes combine to make an "episode" of learning. (curriculum unit)
3 processes of learning:
1. acquisition - collection of new info; usually it is info that contradicts what a person believed intuitively
2. transformation - application of new knowledge towards a new problem
3. evaluation - a check to see if new knowledge fit the different task
There is a problem with depending on grades as the only reward for learning. How are children going to self motivate when they graduate and no longer receive grades? Idea of "spiral curriculum"
Favorite quote: "If the hypothesis with which this section was introduced is true - that any subject can be taught to any child in some honest form - then it should follow that a curriculum ought to be built around the great issues, principles, and values that a society deems worthy of the continual concern of its members." p52
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Reflections on BEDUC 566 #3
This week class was pretty relaxed. The main thing that we worked on was our digital stories.
I learned how to add some music that I found earlier on the Internet. Bobby helped, but I figured out most everything on my own.
What I want to learn how to do is add my voice to the story. I have a short storyline that I would like to read and have the music softly playing in the background. Hopefully we will get that covered next week.
What I am most interested in for next week is talking about the significance of social activity w/ relation to chapter one & two of Gladwell's Outliers. Both of these chapters illustrated a different type of success. Both forms of success were related to social activity. Chapter one was more direct, but chapter two was kind of contradictory. At once Gladwell states that computer programming is a field that is not filled with "the old boys," so you advance because of your own talent. However, Gladwell then said that the boys who were successful (Joy & Gates) were given opportunities. The opportunities were the result of social connections. I am looking forward to our class discussion.
I learned how to add some music that I found earlier on the Internet. Bobby helped, but I figured out most everything on my own.
What I want to learn how to do is add my voice to the story. I have a short storyline that I would like to read and have the music softly playing in the background. Hopefully we will get that covered next week.
What I am most interested in for next week is talking about the significance of social activity w/ relation to chapter one & two of Gladwell's Outliers. Both of these chapters illustrated a different type of success. Both forms of success were related to social activity. Chapter one was more direct, but chapter two was kind of contradictory. At once Gladwell states that computer programming is a field that is not filled with "the old boys," so you advance because of your own talent. However, Gladwell then said that the boys who were successful (Joy & Gates) were given opportunities. The opportunities were the result of social connections. I am looking forward to our class discussion.
METEDL #7
Today's technology experiences? Called Spain to find about about bedding in a hotel room. Got calls, several...used a fax machine, made coffee, made tea, used a calculator for currency exchange calculations & sq meter to sq ft calculations, drove my car, turned on a light, and have been using the Internet all morning long.
Last night we watched a movie off of the laptop from Netflix. It was great, called "The Woods."
I must say that I have changed my view on technology. I was always last to get the new thing. My friends bugged me forever to get a cell phone. They didn't want to leave messages on a landline all the time. We have a used, super old laptop handed down from my father-in-law. We would've never bought one (a computer) on our own. We have a tv from my grandparents. It is really nice actually, from JCPenny's from the 60's. It has wood (real wood) around it. We don't have cable. But this is at home. I can see the benefits in working in an environment surrounded by technology now. When I first started my job, I was definitely scared by it, but I was also confident that I could handle whatever I needed to. I am more curious about technology now. I just recently got a Kindle and I love it.
At work, I can feel connected to everyone. At home it is more isolated. I am happy with this divide. I personally like not being super available at home. It is my place to relax. I kind of get the best of both worlds. I get my social need taken care of during the day at work and I get my quiet alone with my husband time, or alone by myself time, at home.
Last night we watched a movie off of the laptop from Netflix. It was great, called "The Woods."
I must say that I have changed my view on technology. I was always last to get the new thing. My friends bugged me forever to get a cell phone. They didn't want to leave messages on a landline all the time. We have a used, super old laptop handed down from my father-in-law. We would've never bought one (a computer) on our own. We have a tv from my grandparents. It is really nice actually, from JCPenny's from the 60's. It has wood (real wood) around it. We don't have cable. But this is at home. I can see the benefits in working in an environment surrounded by technology now. When I first started my job, I was definitely scared by it, but I was also confident that I could handle whatever I needed to. I am more curious about technology now. I just recently got a Kindle and I love it.
At work, I can feel connected to everyone. At home it is more isolated. I am happy with this divide. I personally like not being super available at home. It is my place to relax. I kind of get the best of both worlds. I get my social need taken care of during the day at work and I get my quiet alone with my husband time, or alone by myself time, at home.
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