End of the online class. Blogging is not for me I would much rather sit down and have a conversation but the online experience was very interesting!

Week 5 5.27

Sameness and fairness.

Everyone we’ve read so far for this class discusses the disparities in schools. There are disparities everywhere, from state aid to assessments, school demographic, everything!

After reading Dr. Tuck’s blog pertaining to the Abbott School Districts court case I was confused at first about why people would be in an uproar over the state giving the poor schools money in order to be equal with the rich schools, but then I started thinking critically about it and I made some realizations. I think there are two very different viewpoints on the issue of equality and social classes. I think there are two major ideas on this subject in terms of class and wealth. On one hand there is the belief and the notion that class and wealth should remain stagnant, the same concept of the Caste system in India. On the other hand there is a belief in upward mobility and the American dream.

I really enjoyed Malcom Gladwell’s talk, and I loved one of his final points about consumer products. Not only was Gladwell an excellent orator with a fascinating voice, I thought the way he compared industry with education was genius. He made a statement about spaghetti sauces that I thought was one of the best sentences I’ve ever heard about education, something that Howard Moscowitz is cited with inventing the concept of ‘horizontal segmentation’ According to Moscowitz, “mustard does not exist on a hierarchy, mustard exists just like tomato sauce on a horizontal plane, there is not good mustard or bad mustard, there is no perfect mustard or imperfect mustard. There are only different kinds of mustard that suit different kinds of people. He fundamentally democratized the way we think about taste...” I think this is a great way to view the classroom. I think it would be amazing if teachers viewed their students as all on one horizontal line: that all students are equal. There are just different variations of each individual. There is no “special ed” or “exceptional.” We as educators should just view our students as human beings. Unique human beings. We need to differentiate instruction in order to accommodate all of our students. Gladwell also said that all mustards are the same, no mustard should be more expensive then another, but the one mustard that is more expensive makes you want it more, it is something to aspire to. That is one of my core educational philosophies. I plan to hold my students to a very high standard. This is not just because I want to be a mean and difficult teacher but because I believe that if I demand the best I will receive the best. I think that an air of superiority in the room can only benefit my students to work their hardest.

I finally cracked the code!!

I have been unable to figure out how to sign back in to my blog until today! Only 2-3 weeks late.. whoops! Here's my blog post from Week 2: 5.30-6.5

Hanenda’s perspective on multiple literacies is very interesting. It correlates nicely with Stubbs and Baker. Hanenda discusses multiple forms of literacy and multiple ways of children expressing themselves. Multiple literacies can come in the form of artistic expression, diaries, and via technology: for example chat rooms, instant messenger, e-mailing, text messaging, blogs, cyber-simulated worlds, etc. “Based on the accounts provided by Lam (2000) and Yi (2005), it can be tentatively said that, outside school, adolescent ELLs strategically and agentively use literacy for their own personal purposes to express their personal feelings and opinions, seek and exchange information, maintain and develop social relations, construct desirable identities for themselves, act as language brokers for the family, and improve their English.” Hanenda poses the issue of incorporating out of school literacy with literacy in the classroom.

I think that technology can be a great solution to the problem of making ELL students literate. Keeping any type of online journal can be exciting and captivating for students. Assignments that incorporate ‘at-home literacies’ can be a great resource to bring into the classroom. The ultimate goal of literacy education is for students to become literate and teachers must try many different venues to achieve that goal.

Innovation

The lecture given by Nick Donofrio was interesting but very vague as I find most lectures these days to be. It was very exciting to meet some one of his caliber and he was a great speaker but I didn't gain much insight to help me be a better teacher... I think that he was trying to stress what we've been learning this entire semester in class, that we need to prepare our students for the 21st century. Unforuntely he didn't give us any examples or ideas. Basically I think that we can seriously help our students by teaching them how to think and expanding their horizons. Teaching them that they need to think, create, invent, inspire, etc. Which is what I plan on doing anyway... Can't wait to be a teacher!!! :)

Wrap uP

So today was the last real class because next week we are going to a workshop type lecture. Today we learned a new way of using the Intel website, the "Showing Evidence Tool" and it is a fabulous resource. I can definetly see my self using it in my classroom. It is a great way of teaching students how to write essays and is a great tool to help them develop their skills. I would even like to use the application every time I assign an essay. We also learned about Wordle which looks really interesting and cool, I'm sure my students would love that. We also made our last remarks, our reaction to the class. And my final conclusion is that I think I deserve more then 3 credits for this class. Haha I am really glad that I have been working on my Google SketchUp for so long because I would have never finished it otherwise. Now I have to start working on my Electronic porfolio which is also probably going to take a lot of time. But it seems like it is going to be an awesome resource to bring into an interview, I feel like having it would put me above other canidates in the interview process. I really hope that I have the opportunity to use it. So- this class has been really challenging, but I guess I have to respect that because I know that as a teacher I am going to be really challenging as well. I do appreciate the education that I got in this class, I am so much more technology literate now and it feels great. I have already noticed how beneficial it is to know all about and how to use these programs. But I hope my knowledge lasts, i can see it being outdated within 5 years if not sooner.

Copyrightation

The "Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia" is NOT a legal document, but it is interpretation of the law and it only applies to educators who produce multimedia. (Hence applies to me)
Here's something ridiculous that I learned: teachers can only use something they cited for two years, after that they have to get permission to use the source.
The Guidelines in order to stay within fair use are extremely limiting. It doesn't allow you to use very much of any resource.
Mrs. Murphy-Genter brought up a really good point that we have to be really careful and always protect ourselves in terms of citing and getting permission, I never thought about it before. I could potentially get in a lot of trouble, I really have to be more concious of this issue.

And I want to try to use second life but I still don't understand it. It's really confusing. I don't know if there is a glitch with my avitar, but i tried to put pants on her and her skirt won't go away and it's really annoying me! I can't get rid of the damn skirt! AHHH.

Multimedia assessment

I am really proud of the multimedia assessment project that I came up with, and I would love to use it in real life in my classroom. I really hope that I have the opportunity to do that. Also, if I ever employed this project in a real classroom, there would be a lot of opportunity to offer extra credit since there are very different levels of difficulty in the assignment. I hope that I will continue to think of creative and engaging assignments that challenge my students on many different levels.