Just a post, this is not a "Thing"

Happy fourth of July to everyone. Video pf the Detroit-Windsor International Freedom Festival Fireworks sponsored by Target.

Thing 23

How will I use Web 2.0 in my teaching? I don't know yet. I am going to have a somewhat different teaching assignment next year. As this school year winds down, I have started to think about next year. I am exicted to use and share what I've learned but I don't know how specifically I will use it. I'll save that for my summer work. I will have time to thoughtfully and creatively incorporate podcasts, wikkis, Google Docs, and blogs into my teaching.

Thing 22

I would be very happy to select a professional development course that I think would help me with my teaching. I am tired of hearing motivational speakers, especially the first day of school when all I can think of is "Come on, get on with it. I've got 100 things I need to do before kids show up." And I've been through my share of in-services that may be appropriate for most of the teaching staff in my school but doesn't relate to what I am teaching.

The best professional development I ever attended was at MCISD. I was co-teaching world cultures and thought I should know more about the curriculum so I attended an after-school session. I learned about the writing component on the social studies MEAP. We adminster that in 9th grade and none of the high school social studies teachers were aware that students had to take a stand, support their position with prior knowledge of history, economics,etc., had to include data from a graph that was shown 2 pages before the writing prompt in the test booklet, and had to defend their position with a core democratic value, which they had to explain. I was so glad I had attended that session. I learned so much.

I think the opportunities are there to have similar rewarding experiences with the many offerings of professional development that are available at Michigan LearnPort.

Thing 21

I already use online video in my classroom. Sometimes it is easy to access and use. I use the tutorials from Prentice Hall in my algebra class. I use the videos to re-teach difficult concepts. When I taught world history, I used United Streaming Videos, although some of them are poor quality. All those videos are easy to access, although our tech department wants us to download them and then show them because we use too much bandwith if we show them directly from the site.

When I taught English, I tried to use videos from the internet but with limited success. Some things I could link to one week would be blocked the next. Trying to get Oprah's interview with Elie Wiesel was a challenge. I know YouTube is blocked at school. I usually don't try to look for videos to use at school because so much is blocked and, as I've said before, MHS has been told to reduce the amount of bandwith used. If I preview videos at school, I try to do it after 3:30 when most of the other schools in the district have dismissed.

I'll be looking more carefully at online videos to use in class, now that I know how easy it is to download them. I thought using Zamzar was easy and the second time I used it, the email to me came almost immediately.

iPirates

Finding the Right Combination of Clothes

Got Math?

Thing 20

I think my students would enjoy podcasting. I think they would enjoy professionally made podcasts more than the ones I would make. I think they would enjoy podcasts made by classmates. And I think they would enjoy video podcasts more than audio podcasts. I think that long podcasts would lose their interests. Here are some of the podcasts I think they would enjoy.

Grammar Girl, Princeton Review vocabulary, and the Discovery Channel videos.


It takes me a long time to do any kind of recording. I have used Audacity to record exams and I anlways make mistakes and have to re-record parts. I have tried to put audio to power points for math instruction for students who are absent and suspended so they don't fall behind but it takes me so long that I couldn't do it very often. I imagine the more I do it, the better I'd be. I think podcasting will be one of those summer-time things for me. I will have a lot of time to play around with it and try to get better at it.

What I'm finding while doing completing each stage of 23 Things is that I am enjoying many of the things I have learned more personally than professionally. I am in South Carolina right now and my step-daughter and I are sharing pictures on Flickr. In the same way, the podcasts I am interested in usually don't have anything to do with my job. And I am teaching resource room algebra, not my first or second choice of teaching assignments. So, I am drawn to English/language arts-related podcasts and I really can't use these this year in my teaching. Two podcasts that interested me are The Onion News and This American Life.

Thing 19

Podcasts I listened to:

1. This American Life #377 Scenes from a Recession
2. Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips
3. Princeton Review Vocabulary Minute
4. Ecogeeks: Untamed Science Video Podcast
5. Trigonometry and Geometry Papapodcasts
6. Shrink Rap Radio
7. Big Ideas
8. Awesome Vocabulary
9. The Sound of Young America
10. New Yorker: Fiction

I thoroughly enjoyed Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips, Princeton Review Vocabulary Minute, and Ecogeeks: Untamed Science Video. Grammar Girl has a web site that you can visit that corresponds with the podcast. The podcasts can be used as one more way to teach grammar which can be pretty boring. I listened to 2 podcasts and thought both were entertainting. Princeton Review Vocabulary Minute is amusing but also informative. The podcast is set to music. A word is stated and then a little song is sung containing many other words with the same meaning. I thought it would be a good way to prepare for the ACT/MME. The Ecogeeks video was amazing, although I'm not sure I would have descended to the deep ocean in a homemade submarine like the people in the video did.

I think the audio podcasts would be good for my students as long as they weren't too long. The Big Ideas podcasts are lectures and each is about 45 minutes long. I teach mostly freshmen and those podcasts were too long and too serious for them. And, if you use one method too much it gets boring so I think it would be best to use podcasts as supplements to other teaching methods.

I do have a question about how kids would access a podcast. Would kids be reluctant to download a podcast to their MP3 players? I think podcasts could be downloaded onto iTunes and kids could listen on their computers without having the podcast on their iPods, if they have a computer. I think I'd have to teach kids how to do that. I could make a link to the podcasts on my teacher page on the MHS website. Some kids don't have MP3 players but that wouldn't be an issue for me because I have a few I got in a mini grant that I could use. I'm a little nervous about kids taking them home, though, because getting them back might be hard and I'd never be able to replace them.

Thing 18

Thing 17

Since my husband and I are taking "23 Things" together and we work in the same school, we created a Wiki together. We called it monroehighschool. Maybe this will be too much "togetherness." We'll see.

The thought behind this was that we could use this Wiki as a communication method with MHS students. It could be a way to let kids know what is going on at school. We thought we could have a general MHS page and create a page for each class. It would be a way for students to see what's going on in school and also be able to make comments. We would have to screen comments to make sure they are school appropriate. Monroe High School is so big that it's hard to get the word out about what we offer. And because of the size it's hard to know students' opinions. We thought it would be a way to tell about the serious stuff and the fun stuff that happens at our school.

This wiki is different than a blog because it is more collaborative. There isn't just one author who publishes information. There could be problems with students writing inappropriate things about other people or using inappropriate language but the Wiki can be set up to make sure that inappropriate comments aren't published. One problem we may have is that I believe Wikispaces are blocked by our Tech department and would not be available for students or teachers to use during school hours. Another problem would be the time it would take to manage the Wiki.

I think Wikis are a good tool for when students have to do group projects. Students can contribute to information and they don't even need to be in the same building. Again, there may be a problem at MHS with Wikis being blocked and that would mean students would have to access a Wiki at home or a public library.

Thing 13

I have spent a good portion of my Saturday afternoon playing around with Flickr and Dumpr. I have added a bunch of family pictures to Flickr and organized them into sets. I made those private. There are pictures of little kids in them and although I know people post their children's pictures on Facebook and other sites, it makes me a little nervous.

I wish these sites were available to students during school (provided I could limit their access to what they viewed). All of my students have to prepare a power point as part of a common assessment for English. Think of the possibilities they would have with adding and customizing pictures. Because many of my students don't have computers at home, this would be something that could only be done in the public library.

Sometimes I wish I was doing this "class" in the summer where I have more time to explore. As it is now, I have kind of ignored my dusty house today.

Lily and Dylan

Thing 12

We were asked to comment about how we could use Filckr in the classroom and how we can share with other teachers. We can't used Flickr in the classroom because it is blocked from being used in school. I could use it outside of school but not in school. I don't think I would ask kids to go on Flickr because I couldn't control which pictures they view and I would need to do that if I gave an assignment.

I was thinking about how nice it would have been to know about this site when I was teaching world cultures. The course was organized by region. Students would first learn about the geography of a region, then the history, and then they would study the culture and modern-day concerns. I used to think that we'd spend all this time talking about Latin America or China or South Asia and the kids wouldn't have any connections to what the places and people in these regions looked like. I spent a lot of time on Google trying to find pictures to make a "virtual tour" so we had some ideas of sights of a region. I would also try to include music and language of the regions so we would also be exposed to the "sounds." I'd even bring in food so the more adventuresome students could connect to a region with "taste." With Flickr, I could go to a map and the pictures are organized geographically. What a nice way to see a place you may never go to.

Thing 11

I spent a lot of time browsing SlideShare, mostly in the Education category. I had some trouble with it, though, because I didn't get sound on any of the presentations and I never figured out why. I couldn't find anything that I could specifically use in my teaching. That's probably more of a function of what I am teaching this year, though, because there were plenty of presentations that could be used for English/language arts, science, and social studies. I did see some presentations that I could steal ideas from. There was one about time travel that would be an interesting project for students in world history classes. There was another about ways to fail a class that was funny but it was geared to college students. I could modify that and do a funny presentation in my developing skills class when we set goals for the new trimester.

If I asked students to use this site, I would have to limit their searches. There are so many presentations that I think they would get bored sorting through them for one that interested them or was useful for an assignment. I didn't make it though all the education ones before I got bored.

Feel Small

Feel Small?

View more presentations from Jason Wyatt. (tags: earth space)

Thing 10

I created a survey on Google Docs and thought I was being very clever. I have a class called developing skills. It is a special education class where students can bring their work from their general education classes to the resource room to get help. It is a chance for re-teaching and practice. It is like study-hall-plus. I am required to give a trimester exam. In previous trimesters, the exam has been an essay exam. Students need to reflect on their successes and what they did to be successful. They also have to reflect on where they weren't successful, why they weren't successful, and what they need to do differently. Written expression is usually a weak area for learning disabled students so an essay of this length can be challenging for some students. I thought creating a survey would be a good way to do the exam. I created some questions that were checklists, some that were on a sliding scale, and a few essay questions. The problem is that I need to be able to view individual responses. I really don't need to compile the data into one report. I can't figure out if I can get individual reports on this survey. If I can't, I won't be able to use it as an exam. Creating it was a good learning experience, though. I learned how to create questions and to edit and move questions around.

Thing 8

I found "Thing 8" much easier to do than "Thing 6." I have had a lot of fun creating my delicious account and starting social bookmarking. I have already added a bookmark from my husband's bookmarks. He found a really good site with algebra tutorials. I will also add the link to my teacher page for my students to use. I also added "Read the Words" from Jim's bookmarks. The thing I like about del.icio.us is how easy it is to use. I am anxious to talk about this at a department meeting and share it with the other special ed teachers at Monroe High School. What a great way to share resources.

Thing 5

Web 2.0 has sort of popped into my use of the Internet without me noticing. The presentations in Thing 5 describe the shift of web 1.0 and software-based information being a model where you receive and research information to the idea of the web being participatory, collaborative, and free. I never even noticed the changes but as I was reading and watching the presentations I thought "how could I have missed this?" The way I use technology is far different than the way I used it not very long ago.

Which leads to, how can all this "stuff" be used in my school? I love the idea of blogging, both with colleagues and as a way to students to post assignments and create dialogue about a topic. But how? Most of my students do not have a computer at home. How do I convince students and parents that it is not "unreasonable" to ask them to visit a public library or to stay after school to access the technology needed to complete an assignment or to get information about a class?

How do you get teachers to participate? Our media specialist has set up a MHS blog site that I have never visited. Have other teachers? I have no idea. Shame on me.

I have a lot to learn and a lot to try.

Thing 4

Our assignment for "23 Things" was to reflect on how teaching and learning have changed since I was a child and how they are the same. I know we are to compare then vs. now, but a wave of nostalgia has swept over me. I remember teachers who made an impact, good and not-so-good. I remember Mrs. Canary, my beloved kindergarten teacher. Isn't that a great name for a kindergarten teacher? I remember Mrs. Dyer, my junior English teacher at Redford Union High school who taught me how to write and how to read literature. When I took ATL at MSU it was the same curriculum. Thanks, Mrs. Dyer.

My reflection also would have to admit that in many ways schools have remained unchanged since I was a public school student. Desks still are lined up in rows. In many cases, the teacher stands at the front of the room and lectures while students take notes. Many assessments are still multiple choice tests.

There are many changes, too. The use of computers has changed education in ways we can see and probably in ways we don't even know yet. Just this week I was helping a student write a research paper and he didn't have enough information. The information was just a click away. Create a works cited page? No problem--another click and we are at Easy Bib. Even the typing part was so much easier when on a computer. Does anyone remember erasable bond paper?

I do believe at MHS we are so focused on meeting MMC benchmarks in core curriculum areas that many of the skills needed for the 21st century are not being taught. We do not teach "depth over breadth." We are focused on making AYP in English/language arts and math. And we have to focus on that because we haven't made AYP in several years. As a special education teacher, I especially feel the pressure of this. One of the subgroups who hasn't made AYP is students with disabilities. What do we do to help kids with disabilities improve reading, math, and written language skills while also teaching 21st century skills such as global awareness, financial, economic, business, and entrepreneurship literacy, civic literacy, health literacy, critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, and communication and collaboration? Somehow, we have to integrate 21st century skills into teaching of core subjects. That is the challenge.

Thing 3

My initial thoughts about blogging are that there are a lot of blogs out there so the chances of anyone reading this, other than class members, is slim. One of the questions posed in this assignment is to answer how does it feel to share my thoughts so publicly? The answer is sharing my thoughts in this way doesn't feel unnerving because I think only a small audience will be reading it. Also, I think I will probably be more reserved with my thoughts because they are in writing.

I have read a couple blogs before, and responded to them, but responding is really nonthreatening because you can remain anonymous. None of the blogs were education-related.

One of my concerns is that some of the blogs I have read have been nasty because people can remain anonymous. An example is of some of the blogging I have seen in the Monroe Evening News. I think it is wrong that the Monroe Evening News allows some of the responses to be posted.

Can You Solve for y?

Next week I have to teach solving systems of equations to my 9th grade resource room algebra class. This worries me.