Maloy and me…

Read Chapter 3 in Maloy, focus question #2: What are the “student learning objectives” and “understanding by design” (backward design) models of lesson planning?

Understanding by design (UBD) or backward design is to education what “form follows function” is to interior design and ergonomics, your lesson plan is designed with a specific results in mind, as such the information presented will led your students to the conclusion you want them to draw. Let’s say I am teaching Hamlet and want to use Ophelia’s suicide as a lesson in how foolish her impulse to kill herself was when in a matter of days Hamlet would return and they would have reconciled. The path I establish helps them to see that what appears to be a disparate situation one day may shortly be resolved more satisfactorily

Read Chapter 2 in Maloy, focus question #2: In what ways does technology promote unique, powerful, and transformative learning?

Given that I have spent more time on the internet this semester than I ever before, I stumbled upon a lovely children’s book that was published in 1917. It is wonderfully illustrated and tells the story of a rocket ignited by a mischievous boy and how it bursts though the high-rise apartment building where he lives. If I were to read this for a class of Kindergartens I would create a power-point with the illustrations, my version of the Jumbotron, so that as I read aloud, everyone is able to enjoy the pictures.  At all grade levels Power-point is the no excuses alternative to the traditional poster board, limited dexterity is not an issue with the use of cut and paste, the inequity of household incomes is eliminated by this requirement, it is a greener choice saving trees eliminating additional waste that is hauled to the landfill.  

Read Chapter 5 in Maloy, focus question # 4: How can teachers and students thoughtfully evaluate online information resources, including the online encyclopedia Wikipedia?

Look for the Uniform Resource Locator- or the  ._ _ _   & Look for bias.

Teachers and students are able to evaluate online information resources by comparing the information provided to other sources that cover the same topic for consistency, also checking the citation sources listed in the bibliography or reference list.

Read Chapter 6 in Maloy, focus question #6: How might educational websites provide interactive an engaging learning experiences to students?

The gaming industry is booming why not use a question and answer format to acquire those special powers that give player’s the edge or help them to advance to different levels.  NASCAR evolved from the days of boot-legged whiskey and Prohibition Agents, a game using vintage vehicles to race across the Canadian border. One could gain advantages in horsepower with a correct answer or setbacks like a flat tire with a wrong one, questions about the period might inspire a new interest in history. Civil Rights/Sports History Trivia. Literary Crosswords. Pictures covered by puzzle pieces that are removed by correctly answering questions. Or any game played with tokens can only be earned by answering questions correctly.

Read chapter 9 in Maloy, focus question #1: What is multimedia technology and how can teachers use it to effectively create and share visual information dynamically in their teaching?

Multimedia technology can be used to enhance education by filling in the gaps between what was and what is. The seemingly dry readings schools require of students can come alive with the aid of digital scrapbooks, power-points, videos or iMovies. If writing information on a chalkboard accompanying by a lecture, was successful the advertising agencies of Madison Avenue would grind to a halt. But while advertisers can influence huge numbers of people young and old to spend more than they have to purchase things they do not need. Teachers are consistently failing to influence the vast majority of students to learn and should look at the example set by the media for a new approach. Similarly product placement is nothing new in literature, To Kill a Mockingbird is full of literary and historical references which if elaborated upon would serve to enrich the text and possibly inspire addition reading.  

Read Chapter 7 in Maloy, focus question #5: How can teachers evaluate the effectiveness of educational software?  

Effective software of any type but especially educational needs to be user friendly if not it simply won’t be used. Because of this I take umbrage with the court’s decision against Apple in allowing a proprietor claim to be established on basic functions common to all computer software. If I were the mother of a child who requires computer assistance to communicate and my only experience with the computer was as a data entry person, this additional level of unnecessary frustration seems to be an unreasonable burden to the user. But that is my on-going rant of Mac vs. PC. So as a classroom example using digital crossword puzzles, the soft ware would need to be able to provide hints or clues that help to keep the process of solving the puzzle moving. The option of moving up or down in the levels of difficulty would be significant. And it should be easily read and visually appealing.

Read chapter 8 in Maloy, focus question #3: How can teachers use a website or blog to improve learning?

A website or blog should be required for each class, including access to the power-points presented as they can help to refresh a student’s memory of the discussion, of may be needed to fill-in the blanks if there has been a disturbance during the class session. Posting the criteria for assignment and the due dates, providing links to supplemental materials. Include information about school activities so that parents and students can become more involved.

Read chapter 4 in Maloy, focus question # 5: What instructional strategies and approaches promote technology integration while addressing the participation gap?

As someone who hopes to become a special education instructor I am aware of many ways in which technology integration will be instrumental in the classroom and am certain that there are many more that I have yet to be exposed to. Reading levels may vary vastly among students and should meet at a reasonable level of expectation. Remaining cognizant of the variety of skill level demonstrated among students in special education classrooms I feel that it is important to make independent study assignments available to those students that are so inclined.

Read chapter 11 in Maloy, focus question #3: How can students become actively involved in assessment and evaluation using technology?

For an instructor of English at the Secondary Level of Education, or one certified as a Special Education Teacher my desire is to deal with each student’s individual needs. In either position assessment is instrumental in building one’s skills and proficiency. By utilizing any number of online Learning Styles and Strategies quizzes, individual students may identify their academic strengths and weaknesses. Thus we can work to develop the skills that will enable them to perform successfully in the classroom as well as in the workplace.

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Project 6-ProfCast

The irony of someone intimidated by W200 who is exasperated with each assignment by the limitations of each program is not lost on me. My palms sweat, anxiety builds, only to find myself expecting more, then the if only phase begins. If only I could edit my video clip, to precisely the point where I want it to end. If only it would play inside the video presentation of ProfCast. If only each piece of software came with turn-key operating instructions, as well as the detailed information that makes my eyes glaze over.

Being among the ranks of those who hate to listen to their own voice despite of how much I like to talk is another of life’s little ironies, so I welcomed the opportunity to do so at home instead of stumbling through it in the computer lab. But if fate allows me the opportunity to instruct a group of students that I can all my own, I intend to use such devices as a way to keep students current with the progress of instruction when they are forced to stay home ill or if snow days are threatening the normal progress of class at a critical point. They will lose out on the social aspect of class discussion but be able to return to class without the nasty surprise of playing catch-up with all the work they have missed.

PowerPoint

Project 5

My PowerPoint presentation is based on William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, a tale in keeping with my aspiration to teach English Lit. to the hormonally charged brains of teenagers. The plot deals with suicide, homicide, lies, deceit, self-absorbed behavior, mental break down, grief, imprudent remarriage  of a parent, friendships, rivalries, revenge, and did I mention a ghost. It is somewhat difficult to blog about something visual, but what I can say is I have not had this much fun since I worked as a commercial space-planner and interior designer. I was so pleased with the presentation that I simply watched over and over. Creating two family trees, and diagramming the death toll, well as twisted as it sounds was a heck of a lot of fun. So hopefully this will be some consolation to me as I record my pod-cast, oh did I say I am not looking forward to that part of this class?

Adventures in iMovie

Blog Project 4                                                       iFound iMovie iMazing! My adventures in traversing the digital divide has been much like Caesar crossing the Rubicon. So via my knowledgeable tour guide/computer lab assistant Brad, I found my way through the final steps of creating and saving my iMovie. Brad also enlightened me about the historical necessity of Apple’s Mac making what I had previously considered annoying alterations to the basic functions of computing. For example, right side versus left side _ [­_]] X icons: Proprietary claims of patent infringement forced Apple to move these functions out of the upper right-hand corner. Aren’t we all happy that this logic was not imposed by a similar claim, on the part of Henry Ford, forcing the change of arrangement of the gas and brake pedals on any car produced by different manufactures?  Having this explanation, I was able to reconcile my differences with the Mac operating system and embrace its differences. I formed a deep appreciation for the Mac’s ease of use in so many ways. Thus I was able to finish Project 4, which I had previously seen as a highly questionable event. And though I can see ways to improve on this first attempt, I am happy enough with the results.  Lacking the vision of a director, my approach was that of a visual narrator to the song “Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be? (Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be?)”, based on a popular parlor tune/nursery rhyme with lyrics addressing the arguments made against the woman's right to vote. Samuel Johnson may have summed such arguments up best when he said, “Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.”

 In the current atmosphere of similarly heated political debates, we often find that those who speak the loudest seem to be the least worth listening to. As such I have attempted to design a project that would serve as a supplement to the reading of The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn, elaborating on the theme of temperance and The Women’s Suffrage Movement. When looking at the devices used to influence public opinion, we would contrast and compare the fight for women’s suffrage with the hot topics of today.  Standards based on:

READING: Comprehension and Analysis of Literary Text                                                                           

9.3    Students read and respond to grade-level-appropriate historically or culturally significant works of literature, which illustrate the quality and complexity of the materials to be read by students. At Grade 9, students read a wide variety of literature, such as classic and contemporary literature, historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, folklore, mythology, poetry, short stories, dramas, and other genres.

9.7.12         Analyze the types of arguments used by the speaker, including argument by causation, analogy (comparison), authority, emotion, and the use of sweeping generalizations.

9.7.13         Identify the artistic effects of a media presentation and evaluate the techniques used to create them.

 iMovie has proven to be an amazing application;  a wonderful tool for quick presentations of events that would otherwise seem to obscure for most students to imagine. The Dust Bowl of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, the Africa of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, J.D. Salinger’s world as seen in The Catcher in the Rye. Maintaining a very Socratic view of education, I hope to instill in my students a lifelong the desire to dig more deeply in to the subject matter, and can envision students using iMovie in the classroom to illustrate poetry, or to introduce the book they have read and will be reporting on in class.

   

 

It’s almost three a.m. as I begin this blog. Early this evening I returned to campus, to begin Project 2 all over, a task I completed, minus the captions and intro, by ten after ten o’clock.

Like everyone else I’ve had a very long and busy day and I am tired, but mentally I am scheduling  the next day’s/actually today’s events… return to campus… try and put the finishing touches on this project, add those captions and the intro, classes, blah, blah, blah!  Look color anything I say with the fact that I am tired…I need my sleep!!!

So I will get to the point, this is a project I

could have spent loads of time on if only I owned a Mac. I enjoyed developing the concept and laying out the images. The software does a lot and as usual I want even more! I want to be able to scale my images to a greater degree and more easily, though I was able make token adjustments to them.  I want all the background colors available in every style of book. I want to paste in text, change my font, both of which are more than likely easily done but, I have not figured it out yet. I want to layer text over an image, if it can be done, PLEASE show me how. And most of all were it concerns this project, I want an exemption from the “clear and sharp image” requirement as I was dealing with many photographs taken in the 1930’s. But my biggest complaint is not being able to use my own computer.

I warned you I am cranky when I am tired! Mental Note: Add to tomorrow’s schedule write a better blog.

“Once Upon A Time”

“Once Upon A Time”

May I first express my thanks to Laura for being so efficient with her blog that I was able to follow the path she laid out in order to jump into this assignment! Making an impulsive selection during our Trackstar assignment, I was inclined to change topics, but instead stuck with my first choice.  The selection of Harper Lee’s book, “To Kill A Mockingbird”, when used as instructional material for literary criticism, is like being let loose in a candy shop-- there is just sooooooooooooo much to choose from. Racism, poverty, the issues of divorce and death, of child neglect and abuse, all with the undercurrent of a ghost story made my mission easy. My hypothetical assignment comes with two parts, the individual portion requires both internet and library research that will culminate in a three page essay.  The second part involves group work to design a power point presentation with a brief oral summary of their work to be presented before the class. The resources I have provided my imaginary students offer insight into the racial climate of the time, the economy, social justice, fashion trends, as well as biographical information about the author and her inspiration for her characters. Because of this, the essays should have various perspectives and touch on multiple elements of the educational standards such as [9.3.9] explain[ing] how voice and the choice of a narrator affect characterization and the tone, plot, and credibility of a text. Example: Read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and discuss the impact of six-year-old Scout’s narration as the story unfolds. Or the ever popular [9.3.12] analyze the way in which a work of literature is related to the themes and issues of its historical period. And opportunity for, Standard 4-WRITING: Processes and Features [where] Students discuss ideas for writing with other writers. They write coherent and focused essays that show a well-defined point of view and tightly reasoned argument. Students progress through the stages of the writing process (prewriting, writing, editing, and revising).And last but not least, [9.4.6] Synthesize information from multiple sources, including almanacs, microfiche, news sources,… studies, speeches, journals,…,, and Internet. I want the book to draw out the aspects that speak most strongly to them as teens, and hope that class discussions will provide the impetus for them to revisit the novel later in their lives and see how differently it affects them. Thank you once again to Laura, and to the State of Indiana, because of them this blog practically wrote itself.

Establish the Objective

“Student learning objectives” are the specific skills and knowledge a student needs to be able to demonstrate ____.

a.)   proof of understanding, hence the advancement of knowledge;      

b.)   to please her parents’ and teachers’;

c.)   in order to help his state qualify for a bigger piece of the federal funds awarded to K-12 public education system;

d.)   student progress, and the potential efficacy of every teacher and school by our political system;

e.)   all of the above.

Due to the rising emphasis on bureaucratic bench marks and standardized-testing based accountability, teachers are increasingly citing frustrations over having to teach to a test and/or rigid curriculum guidelines.  What many fail to recognize, however, is that the method of instruction and interaction undertaken in the learning process is ultimately up to the assigned teacher. By determining what result you as the teacher are looking for, and deciding on the facts/information required to demonstrate comprehension of the lesson on the part of the student, you can devise the method of achieving the desired results which both satisfies one’s professional conscience and the demands of the test. With the use of limited access to internet sources, the subject matter being discussed can be broadened to include related facts and materials as supplemental information that provides the students with information which will hopefully make the topic not only more interesting but more relatable, and by that connection making it more readily retained.

(Having established this objective, I do want to emphasize the point of limited access as a controlled area of approved source material. The use of such productive controls reduces the seemingly irresistible opportunity for students to use the internet for athletic shoe shopping. And as current standardized tests have yet to utilize an essay aimed at definitively answering the Nike v. Adidas question, it is safe to argue the advisability of its use.)

Furthermore, a greater reliance on such technology would also aid in helping to increase the overall productivity of the class room environment as an unmentioned and very under estimated value of online projects and submittal would be that of limiting the spread of germs and viruses-- hardcopy submissions not protected by a sneeze guard and inherently demand the presence of Typhoid Marys. In addition, the student benefit of then being able to improve one’s work by utilizing the teacher’s suggestions and corrections, so as to develop a stronger piece than that of the original submission, would make it more viable to have such corrections adopted for work included in a student’s portfolio of their academic career. And as the political objective expressed in numerous articles about educational reform is to make high school graduates “ready for college and career”, and though I am at a loss to identify even one career that would require only a high school diploma. Let us more accurately attempt to make high school graduates ready for college and the workplace-- a workplace where pictures of the menu items are not required to be put on the cash registers keys, or where making correct change for a customer is not a daunting challenge, and where the concept of being at work is an extension of expected class room behavior where one focuses on the task at hand with their cell phone off until break time.

 In a political climate which supports the double speak of a new educational renaissance and the virulent demand of “doing more with less,” one is left to wonder if the inmates have taken over the asylum. As politicians focus on national, state and local standards that form the guide lines of academic expectation, teachers are left to structure a curriculum which teaches not only to a test, but to the foundational needs of their students as well. The challenge will be to find and retain those up to the task.    

Technology Aided Autonomy

Peggy Van Acker

Technology Aided Autonomy

As autonomy should be the objective, assisted technologies are helping individuals with handicaps achieve independence never before possible. Such depictions are seen in the movie “Freedom Machines”, where motorized wheelchairs convey students around campus, and innovations that enable specially equipped wheelchairs to negotiate curbs and climb stairs will provide access to areas once beyond their users reach. As the expense of such devices may currently be price prohibitive, it could reasonably be argued that guaranteed financial assistance could limit renovations which are currently legally required to make existing facilities handicapped accessible. By re-appropriating these funds to provide equipment that has the ability to allow access to standard buses and most every building without requiring structural changes,  the potential viability and momentum for further innovation builds. Wheelchairs capable of allowing its user vertical accessibility would make independent living in standard apartments possible, libraries and bookshelves would no longer provide obstacles requiring assistance in acquiring materials desired for research or pleasure, and shopping would no longer be limited to shelves that can be reached from a seated position. As legislation attempts to readdress previous inequities involving those with disabilities, a compassionate public should look to correct such situations by striving to enable each citizen to achieve their personal best where it concerns personal autonomy. For the blind it may be more practically achieved by first providing changes in our national currency which would create different sizes of bills for different denominations of currency, thus making it possible to independently verify correct exchange of currency. (This would also be of use for the autistic and others dealing with developmental disabilities.) Braille reading materials and keyboards, and voice activated software, phones and security systems, are also areas that would aid those with visual limitation.  While for those living with autism, training in creating a very structured living plan, instruction providing them with the skills for managing to negotiate their local commutes via public transportation, and making them aware of general norms of social interaction should be status quo.  In addition to all of this, included in the overall educational scheme should be a broader understanding of issues facing those who live with such conditions to the entire student population in the effort to achieve better understanding and acceptance.