Overwhelmed does not even begin to describe my feelings of late. I think I have a good grasp of what is going on and then "poof", reality settles in and I am once again lost! I know we will get all the work done, I am in a good group, but the mountain is high and time is short. The chance to work on it last night was a gift from heaven. I did feel I had a better understanding when I left, but still there is lots to do. There are just too many major projects to keep straight. There has got to be a better way. I thought the Work Sample 1 was an ongoing project, yet I have heard nothing of it and I know Work Sample 2 is right around the corner.
If they are going to include software education in this course it should be at the beginning. It would be a mistake to have it after the multimedia class. From the sound of things last night, I think people expected to learn how to use multimedia software. This would have been most advantageous to the group. How can we use multimedia with our kids if we do not know how to use it?
I really like the teacher tube video we watched "Are You Listening". I think it makes its point very well. I would like to use that with my faculty. I wanted to interject last night that it would be wonderful to move kids away from "how many sentences does it have to be" to "can you understand what I mean, do I make my point?" That would make a huge difference in engaging the student vs teaching for the test. What are the means to the end and what is the end? Are we preparing these future leaders to think for themselves or to get the answers correct? It seems that changing our models of education is a slow and painful process. Even though we know the key to success is in being able to problem solve and think, the students don't spend enough time partaking in that type of learning when they are being lectured at all day.
There are tried and true models of education that practice and succeed in this very type of education, but we fail to change our ways. Hopefully our colleges are teaching this way of teaching and our new teachers will follow through. We all know how hard it is to teach an old teacher new tricks!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
PBL-Can We Make It Work?
I am just not having any luck with this blog! I went to edit last week's post (which I didn't get up until last night due to technical difficulties) and it gave me an error message! So please forgive my grammatical errors on the previous post. I really did try to fix them. I sure hope this one posts.
The movie was very insightful and true. But making all those component come together smoothly is a huge challenge! Of course that does not mean we throw in the towel and say "impossible, can't be done". The best course of action is to keep trying, to persevere. That is what I keep telling myself even though many of my fellow teachers would just like to leave technology in the computer lab and not have to deal with it. I have not had a teacher's manual to work from for over 10 years and I have very involved lessons that overflow my file cabinets.
History has proven the home situation and emotional well being of the student are key to success in academics. With the webgrading system we have at school, the communications between home and school have greatly improved. For the parents and teachers that use the system, it has been a wonderful tool for keeping their children on target. When I send notes home, I am happy to see improvement in the students performance the next week. I so wish my own kids had that. I know we have teachers that still don't use it and I hear them complain about their students. If only they would trust technology. But I have offered help and they resist to the point of nastiness, so I back down. I am not the principal, I have no authority, so we all suffer.
I just installed Camino. Let's see if it solves my posting problem.
The movie was very insightful and true. But making all those component come together smoothly is a huge challenge! Of course that does not mean we throw in the towel and say "impossible, can't be done". The best course of action is to keep trying, to persevere. That is what I keep telling myself even though many of my fellow teachers would just like to leave technology in the computer lab and not have to deal with it. I have not had a teacher's manual to work from for over 10 years and I have very involved lessons that overflow my file cabinets.
History has proven the home situation and emotional well being of the student are key to success in academics. With the webgrading system we have at school, the communications between home and school have greatly improved. For the parents and teachers that use the system, it has been a wonderful tool for keeping their children on target. When I send notes home, I am happy to see improvement in the students performance the next week. I so wish my own kids had that. I know we have teachers that still don't use it and I hear them complain about their students. If only they would trust technology. But I have offered help and they resist to the point of nastiness, so I back down. I am not the principal, I have no authority, so we all suffer.
I just installed Camino. Let's see if it solves my posting problem.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
This week
Technology is not liking me this week. I upgraded my OS to the latest on my eMac and it is not allowing me to add to my blog or edit the wiki. So I have behind in getting to this blog. I did it already, but never checked to make sure it was in and it was not!
Last week's class was interesting. I have never heard of the Loti scale and I have been in technology for 10 years. I am happy to say that I have been striving and at time succeeding at hitting a 4 with a good portion of my lessons. I have aggressively trying to integrate the regular classroom curriculum into our tech program. I try to involve my students in the decision making process when it comes to our projects. Due to time constraints it is not always easy. I just did a budget project with the 8th graders where they had to research a career. They needed to know the amount of schooling required, the cost of that school, the average income for that career and the terms of the student loan. After all the calculations were completed in a spreadsheet they had to set up a household budget. Purchasing a home, car (if they could afford one), and all the expenses that the average American faces were put into the spreadsheet. Their eyes were opened to what good old mom and dad are experiencing.
I would like to introduce the Loti scale to my faculty and find out where they feel they are. Possibly that would put the spark into them to move themselves up to the next level. Think it will work?
Last week's class was interesting. I have never heard of the Loti scale and I have been in technology for 10 years. I am happy to say that I have been striving and at time succeeding at hitting a 4 with a good portion of my lessons. I have aggressively trying to integrate the regular classroom curriculum into our tech program. I try to involve my students in the decision making process when it comes to our projects. Due to time constraints it is not always easy. I just did a budget project with the 8th graders where they had to research a career. They needed to know the amount of schooling required, the cost of that school, the average income for that career and the terms of the student loan. After all the calculations were completed in a spreadsheet they had to set up a household budget. Purchasing a home, car (if they could afford one), and all the expenses that the average American faces were put into the spreadsheet. Their eyes were opened to what good old mom and dad are experiencing.
I would like to introduce the Loti scale to my faculty and find out where they feel they are. Possibly that would put the spark into them to move themselves up to the next level. Think it will work?
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Lots of Stuff!
There is so much on the web for teachers and education, it is amazing we still need to purchase books! If schools were truly one to one with computers and students our curriculum's could be packed full of interactive teaching sites. The resources on the eduwiki was quite interesting, I could spend a lot of time on that site. Wimbia, the virtual classroom tool looks interesting. I can see using the virtual book clubs, teacher blogs (good subjects, very relevant material) and teacher tips often. I will have to bookmark that one.
I could see using quizlab with my students, though I don't give that many quizzes. I will have to try it out next year when I give my key command quiz. I will be using the engrade site with my UWM students.
Seeing the way the other students did their website evaluations did give me alarm. Every one's looks so much better than mine, but I did put a lot of work into it. I did it brief as I had the evaluation forms filled out and thought we would somehow be using those. I did it like the wiki paragraph said . I guess we are relying more on what we posted on our wiki pages.
Google docs is not always working for me. Sometimes I am able to copy the published link and sometimes I am not, so I have to copy and paste the whole document. I don't understand why this keeps happening, but I am getting away from creating links. I am going to get good at this and make it work. I hope to be better organized next class as I felt very hodge podge this class. As though I was moving 100 miles an hour and unable to catch my breath. I don't think the pressures of the holidays helped. It was stressful. If the schedule could be redone and the class end before Christmas, that would be most helpful. Having homework over that break was painful. Until we meet again.........
I could see using quizlab with my students, though I don't give that many quizzes. I will have to try it out next year when I give my key command quiz. I will be using the engrade site with my UWM students.
Seeing the way the other students did their website evaluations did give me alarm. Every one's looks so much better than mine, but I did put a lot of work into it. I did it brief as I had the evaluation forms filled out and thought we would somehow be using those. I did it like the wiki paragraph said . I guess we are relying more on what we posted on our wiki pages.
Google docs is not always working for me. Sometimes I am able to copy the published link and sometimes I am not, so I have to copy and paste the whole document. I don't understand why this keeps happening, but I am getting away from creating links. I am going to get good at this and make it work. I hope to be better organized next class as I felt very hodge podge this class. As though I was moving 100 miles an hour and unable to catch my breath. I don't think the pressures of the holidays helped. It was stressful. If the schedule could be redone and the class end before Christmas, that would be most helpful. Having homework over that break was painful. Until we meet again.........
Saturday, January 12, 2008
My Rant-January 9
Tonight I felt stupid in class. I do not enjoy feeling stupid so it was not a pleasant evening for me. I have never "imed" before so it was a totally new experience. I did not understand what we were doing with Pam. Since I was unable to access any of the websites being discussed I did not feel I had anything to contribute. I think perhaps going over or demonstrating how to use the im would have been very beneficial to those of us who have never used it before. I think there were enough of us to warrant that.
Having more demonstration or examples on how an assignment is to be done would be extremely beneficial to this class. I am lost, and my frustration level is over the top at times. The website evaluations took many hours. I truly believe 10 websites was too many. To do a quality job the quantity should have been less. The first 2 websites I looked at took me about 2 hours each. I really wanted to find useful tools for my classroom. But at that rate, I just knew I could not complete the assignment and take care of all my other responsibilities. I must say, my family does suffer due to this masters program. I followed the guidelines in the individual assignment section of the wiki:
"Create an annotated list of the sites. Review the sites using the evaluation tool your study team decides on to guide you in describing the site. Include a brief description, including the kind of pre-prep that is needed to use the site, standards that are supported by the site and evaluation consistency and workings of the site. Is it complete? Working well? Etc."
It would be most beneficial if all rubrics were posted and gone over at the time of the assignment posting. This is at least the second time a rubric has been posted only days or hours before the class met.
It looks like each student did his/her own interpretation of how the assignment was to be done. I put a lot of time into this and now I have to fix it. I never understood that annotated meant the APA format. I even looked it up online to see what it meant. Like Louis said, it is all about learning, and that I am doing. But I really hate feeling stupid in the process. Sometimes I wonder if I can go on blindly like this for much longer. I like to know what exactly it is I am suppose to do and I too often feel as though I am in the dark.
I was looking forward to learning about the best sites in class tonight, but we never discussed them. All that work and now I guess I will have to go to each persons wiki to see what websites work best.
Because of the time crunch in this class I often feel I should keep my trap shut or else I will take up too much time. There are many times I feel the discussion should continue but we must move on so I let it die. And if have found that for me transitioning can be a difficult thing. I guess I am a slow learner and like to linger on things a bit longer until I feel I have grasped the concept. I realize there is not time for that, but it does cause me a lot of frustration.
The subject matter in tonight's class did scare me. I am going to be sharing this with my Jr. high students very soon. Lori and I were already planning on doing a unit in computers on bullying so this will work very nicely into that theme. I went over many of the sites listed on the meit wiki and some I found on my own and there is a ton of information on this subject. I will have a lot of share with my students and can't wait to start this lesson. WE have a serious issue with cyberbullying at our school and I hope this lesson will end it. Some of the videos are really eye openers and it is shocking to know that only 15% of parents realize this is happening. I will work on educating the parents. Getting a speaker in maybe at the next home and school meeting would get the word out.
Having more demonstration or examples on how an assignment is to be done would be extremely beneficial to this class. I am lost, and my frustration level is over the top at times. The website evaluations took many hours. I truly believe 10 websites was too many. To do a quality job the quantity should have been less. The first 2 websites I looked at took me about 2 hours each. I really wanted to find useful tools for my classroom. But at that rate, I just knew I could not complete the assignment and take care of all my other responsibilities. I must say, my family does suffer due to this masters program. I followed the guidelines in the individual assignment section of the wiki:
"Create an annotated list of the sites. Review the sites using the evaluation tool your study team decides on to guide you in describing the site. Include a brief description, including the kind of pre-prep that is needed to use the site, standards that are supported by the site and evaluation consistency and workings of the site. Is it complete? Working well? Etc."
It would be most beneficial if all rubrics were posted and gone over at the time of the assignment posting. This is at least the second time a rubric has been posted only days or hours before the class met.
It looks like each student did his/her own interpretation of how the assignment was to be done. I put a lot of time into this and now I have to fix it. I never understood that annotated meant the APA format. I even looked it up online to see what it meant. Like Louis said, it is all about learning, and that I am doing. But I really hate feeling stupid in the process. Sometimes I wonder if I can go on blindly like this for much longer. I like to know what exactly it is I am suppose to do and I too often feel as though I am in the dark.
I was looking forward to learning about the best sites in class tonight, but we never discussed them. All that work and now I guess I will have to go to each persons wiki to see what websites work best.
Because of the time crunch in this class I often feel I should keep my trap shut or else I will take up too much time. There are many times I feel the discussion should continue but we must move on so I let it die. And if have found that for me transitioning can be a difficult thing. I guess I am a slow learner and like to linger on things a bit longer until I feel I have grasped the concept. I realize there is not time for that, but it does cause me a lot of frustration.
The subject matter in tonight's class did scare me. I am going to be sharing this with my Jr. high students very soon. Lori and I were already planning on doing a unit in computers on bullying so this will work very nicely into that theme. I went over many of the sites listed on the meit wiki and some I found on my own and there is a ton of information on this subject. I will have a lot of share with my students and can't wait to start this lesson. WE have a serious issue with cyberbullying at our school and I hope this lesson will end it. Some of the videos are really eye openers and it is shocking to know that only 15% of parents realize this is happening. I will work on educating the parents. Getting a speaker in maybe at the next home and school meeting would get the word out.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
December 20th
Sharing the scavenger hunts with the class was interesting. It is always fun to see how the students interpret the assignment or use the wiki page to post their work. I learned a few things tonight regarding the wiki page. I think from now I I will try to use the links and attachments more so the wiki page is not so long. But I do like not having to click and open more software in order to view a lesson. But the links and attachments make the page look cleaner.
The google docs presentations on search engines was interesting as well. It is good to learn more about other search engines, the good, the bad and the why is it there in the first place? Some of the research done was enlightening, like when Trinie searched for her husband's book and it was not found on the book search engine. Interesting!
At&T's Knowledge Network is a vast website of teacher resources, with website links one is able to search using a variety of criteria. The wide variety of search option makes finding quality material almost easy. But one must still shuffle though the mound of options. This site offers enough for an entire school year worth of teaching opportunities. This site also offers staff development, free training and workshops, discounts and funding, information on e-rate, grant opportunities, and videoconferencing.
Out of the list of online quizzes I think funbrain was my favorite. That one keeps coming up in my lesson searches as well. I will have to do more exploring with that one for my classes. I got so much out of this classes that I was once again over-whelmed and was trying to sift through it all the next day at school. I think the Thursday teachers are getting bombarded with my excited demonstrations of these websites each time we meet. But I am always so pumped after our Wednesday night class that I have to share with someone. I just hope they are using these sites back in their class rooms.
The google docs presentations on search engines was interesting as well. It is good to learn more about other search engines, the good, the bad and the why is it there in the first place? Some of the research done was enlightening, like when Trinie searched for her husband's book and it was not found on the book search engine. Interesting!
At&T's Knowledge Network is a vast website of teacher resources, with website links one is able to search using a variety of criteria. The wide variety of search option makes finding quality material almost easy. But one must still shuffle though the mound of options. This site offers enough for an entire school year worth of teaching opportunities. This site also offers staff development, free training and workshops, discounts and funding, information on e-rate, grant opportunities, and videoconferencing.
Out of the list of online quizzes I think funbrain was my favorite. That one keeps coming up in my lesson searches as well. I will have to do more exploring with that one for my classes. I got so much out of this classes that I was once again over-whelmed and was trying to sift through it all the next day at school. I think the Thursday teachers are getting bombarded with my excited demonstrations of these websites each time we meet. But I am always so pumped after our Wednesday night class that I have to share with someone. I just hope they are using these sites back in their class rooms.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
think-think-thinkfinity.com
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=world This is an excellent map and I will print this world map for the bulletin board and for the third graders. I will have all my students keep as favorites.
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/2316/ Great lessons
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/01/gk2/friends.html
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=11 fractions show this to daughter Aleah and students/teachers for math activities
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/timeline/index.html Really has a nice time line maker. I can think of a lot of ways to apply this. I must to share with the kids 3rd & 5th grade teachers.
http://www.bham.wednet.edu/bio/biomak2.htm-Would be wonderful to use with the kids at the beginning of the school year when I have them write their biographies. It is a biography maker.
http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/wordfamily/- Use with the little guys, k-2nd.
http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=65-print cd and book covers
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/lessons.cfm?BenchmarkID=5&DocID=78-wolves lesson
http://www.powayschools.com/projects/mt&r/ConflictYellowstoneWolf.htm-controversy on wolves in yellowstone
http://snl.aaas.org/sci_update.cfm?DocID=338 gum
http://snl.aaas.org/matrix.cfm-way it is set up
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/landincrisis/drought.html-afgahistan maps
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foundation/grants_teacher.html-gramt information
The above sites were among some of the best that I found from this Wednesday's class. But I could easily add more. I just started to get overwhelmed again at the amount of information. On Thursday I sent a webnote to all teachers introducing them to thinkfinity and all that it has to offer. Those that I saw on Thursday I showed thinkfinity and related websites and they were all very impressed. I asked them to take a look and share with me lessons or sites they feel would work in the curriciulum.
http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/content/2316/ Great lessons
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/01/gk2/friends.html
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=11 fractions show this to daughter Aleah and students/teachers for math activities
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/timeline/index.html Really has a nice time line maker. I can think of a lot of ways to apply this. I must to share with the kids 3rd & 5th grade teachers.
http://www.bham.wednet.edu/bio/biomak2.htm-Would be wonderful to use with the kids at the beginning of the school year when I have them write their biographies. It is a biography maker.
http://www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/wordfamily/- Use with the little guys, k-2nd.
http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=65-print cd and book covers
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/lessons.cfm?BenchmarkID=5&DocID=78-wolves lesson
http://www.powayschools.com/projects/mt&r/ConflictYellowstoneWolf.htm-controversy on wolves in yellowstone
http://snl.aaas.org/sci_update.cfm?DocID=338 gum
http://snl.aaas.org/matrix.cfm-way it is set up
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/landincrisis/drought.html-afgahistan maps
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/foundation/grants_teacher.html-gramt information
The above sites were among some of the best that I found from this Wednesday's class. But I could easily add more. I just started to get overwhelmed again at the amount of information. On Thursday I sent a webnote to all teachers introducing them to thinkfinity and all that it has to offer. Those that I saw on Thursday I showed thinkfinity and related websites and they were all very impressed. I asked them to take a look and share with me lessons or sites they feel would work in the curriciulum.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
