Reading all the blogs was interesting. I too am happy to know I am not alone in my stress and I was pleased to see some very good suggestions for future classes. I hope they are taken into consideration. Amy had a very good idea; we get together in content or grade areas and share our unit projects. That way it is more useful and less time consuming. I would be the biggest loser, as I want to hear all the k-8 projects. She also had more good points; she stated she is disappointed that it isn’t more hands on. I agree. Even though I know how to use most of the software, I think the average classroom teacher needs that time to learn and this is the platform for that type of learning. How is she supposed to develop a unit without the exposure to the software? That defiantly needs to be addressed. I am still hoping we get more into the hardware end of it, as that is what I really need to know. With each passing class I wonder if I should be in this grad program at all.
Susan made a good point regarding the amount of time this unit plan has taken to write. I guess it is good to do a few at this level of detail, but in the real world we truly would not have enough time to teach if we did all our units in this manner. Kate also stated it very well that we need more examples. I feel like I am constantly reinventing the wheel, which is a waste when it comes to teaching, as teachers are brilliant people and they have much to offer. So let the examples be had!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Course Reaction
My course reaction is; it has been a lot of work! How's that? But in all seriousness, the detailed work of the unit plan has made me fine tune my way of preparing lessons. I spend a lot of time thinking about the Loti level of each lesson. I have always tried to make my lessons as real world applicable as possible. I have always known I was teaching more than how to use a computer. This course has been useful to me and I have received a number of good ideas for lessons, however it could use some tweaking.
I feel the rubric for the poster sessions is not as useful as it could be. It would have been more helpful to me if my peers were giving me useful feedback on how real world and level 4 my unit plan is than how well I present my unit plan. The peer review was a valuable exercise and the peer review checklist made it much easier to understand what was expected in the unit plan. However they have not been graded yet, so I have no idea if I hit the mark or am totally off base. I liked having Ed available during a work session as he was able to clarify the unit plan to us.
Get rid of having all groups present on the same information over and over this goes for every course, not just 521. It is much more useful when each group does something different. It is a better use of time and talent. I think better guidelines have to be established for all presentations. Something along the lines of the peer review sheet would be nice with a time limit factored in. A big clock counting down would help, I am not joking about that. We are teachers and talking is what we do best. There were a lot of things we were not able to get to because of long running presentations. I think sitting in front of the computers to complete the online peer reveiw google doc is better than at the tables. There was enough time in between speakers to complete the eval. Once I got home, I had trouble recalling everything.
I feel the rubric for the poster sessions is not as useful as it could be. It would have been more helpful to me if my peers were giving me useful feedback on how real world and level 4 my unit plan is than how well I present my unit plan. The peer review was a valuable exercise and the peer review checklist made it much easier to understand what was expected in the unit plan. However they have not been graded yet, so I have no idea if I hit the mark or am totally off base. I liked having Ed available during a work session as he was able to clarify the unit plan to us.
Get rid of having all groups present on the same information over and over this goes for every course, not just 521. It is much more useful when each group does something different. It is a better use of time and talent. I think better guidelines have to be established for all presentations. Something along the lines of the peer review sheet would be nice with a time limit factored in. A big clock counting down would help, I am not joking about that. We are teachers and talking is what we do best. There were a lot of things we were not able to get to because of long running presentations. I think sitting in front of the computers to complete the online peer reveiw google doc is better than at the tables. There was enough time in between speakers to complete the eval. Once I got home, I had trouble recalling everything.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Unit Plans
In future courses, I would like to see the presentation reviews for the benefit of content rather than presentation quality. The presentation is great for idea sharing, brainstorming, and critiquing for content. Since this presentation review was so different from the past in that everyone covered something different, it had a lot more benefit for all. Having a variety of material to listen to instead of 5 version of the same thing was refreshing too.
I am very interested in getting copies of all the grade school level unit plans. They are all well thought out and I can't wait to add them to my ever expanding collection of lessons. I even went back to school on Thursday all pumped with ideas on how to use spreadsheets with second graders. Tom gave me some very good ideas. I used excel with them and things went really well. I took it very slowly and they followed along just fine. I couldn't find much on the Internet on using spreadsheets with primary grades, but I didn't put that much effort into the search either. It is something I need to pursue. I think I am going to use spreadsheets with the third graders to make arrays and a multiplication table. That is the kind of learning I like, when I can take it right back to my lab and see it in action!
I am very interested in getting copies of all the grade school level unit plans. They are all well thought out and I can't wait to add them to my ever expanding collection of lessons. I even went back to school on Thursday all pumped with ideas on how to use spreadsheets with second graders. Tom gave me some very good ideas. I used excel with them and things went really well. I took it very slowly and they followed along just fine. I couldn't find much on the Internet on using spreadsheets with primary grades, but I didn't put that much effort into the search either. It is something I need to pursue. I think I am going to use spreadsheets with the third graders to make arrays and a multiplication table. That is the kind of learning I like, when I can take it right back to my lab and see it in action!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Clarification
I am glad there will be a questions and answer link on the wiki page. Hopefully that will clear up the confusion many of us have had regarding the projects. It seems that the presentations could have been clarified a bit more as well. A time limit would help as we were unable to get any of the class accomplished due to the length of the presentations. I have presented to the board regarding technology and I will tell you first hand their agenda does not allow for 30 minute presentations. I was given about 5 minutes to state my case. Hand outs are a key when making a presentation. That way the board can review the information when they are making their decision.
I feel our presentation went very well. I plan on using it, with adaptations, in the future. Bill did an excellent job editing it. I know it took him a long time to do. He is particular about his work and keeps at it until the job is done. Thank you again Bill!
I wish Louis would have spoken to everyone. I would like to have heard other's concerns regarding the projects and the course in general. I guess I was under the impression that the Unit Project had to be multimedia because the book is multimedia. And the book is guiding us along on this course. But now that I look at the course title again, I see it says "technology teaching strategies". After talking to Ed and Louis last night I have a lot to do on my unit plan so I better get going!
I feel our presentation went very well. I plan on using it, with adaptations, in the future. Bill did an excellent job editing it. I know it took him a long time to do. He is particular about his work and keeps at it until the job is done. Thank you again Bill!
I wish Louis would have spoken to everyone. I would like to have heard other's concerns regarding the projects and the course in general. I guess I was under the impression that the Unit Project had to be multimedia because the book is multimedia. And the book is guiding us along on this course. But now that I look at the course title again, I see it says "technology teaching strategies". After talking to Ed and Louis last night I have a lot to do on my unit plan so I better get going!
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Working, working, working
I am testing to see if I can add to this blog from this laptop, as it is very difficult to do from my desktop. Having 2 big projects due basically at the same time is really way too much. The PBL unit took me about 10 hours. And I am sure it is not only half of what I should have because I never seem to have a clear picture of what I am suppose to do. We spent about 7 hours at Lori's house on Saturday working on our presentation for the school board, that does not include the time for research. And still I had more homework to do. I hope it is going to be great.
This may be my last class. I am really trying to hold out until summer. I know it will be easier, at least I think it should be easier without having to work all day and then come home and do homework all night. Easter break cannot come soon enough! But I am sure we will have a ton of homework to do over our one week break. So I should not get too excited.
We definitely need to spend more time in class working on our assignments! I was very grateful for the time last week. It seems we brief over things and then get home and we are stumped as to what is expected. It is hard to know exactly what to do unless you are doing it right then and there.
Now I have to figure out what is going on with my sample project.
This may be my last class. I am really trying to hold out until summer. I know it will be easier, at least I think it should be easier without having to work all day and then come home and do homework all night. Easter break cannot come soon enough! But I am sure we will have a ton of homework to do over our one week break. So I should not get too excited.
We definitely need to spend more time in class working on our assignments! I was very grateful for the time last week. It seems we brief over things and then get home and we are stumped as to what is expected. It is hard to know exactly what to do unless you are doing it right then and there.
Now I have to figure out what is going on with my sample project.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Lots O Work
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!
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 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.
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