My goal for my tech use this year has two parts: web presence, and discussion area.
Web Presence:
My plan is to have a place online that I can easily manage and keep updated with important information about my classes. the website should be user friendly for students and parents and help to keep them updated about my English classes.
Discussion area:
I also wanted to create a discussion area that students can use to talk about their work for the class. Specifically, I wanted a place that honors level Junior and Senior students could discuss summer assignments . I have found that students often have similar questions about their work, but do not have a great way of communicating with all of their classmates and I. Also, I wanted the area to be a safe learning environment; a place where students could ask and discuss questions and not have to worry about the whole world seeing their thoughts.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Hitting the wall
Yesterday I didn't blog. I hit the wall. Tech overload. After class on Tuesday, I worked on my website from 6pm to 12am. Between this and all of the new tech I learned Monday - Tuesday, the new learning on Wednesday seemed to be too much. I did not acheive much on Wednesday in the sense of personally learning a lot of new tech or progressing on my website or webquest. However, I helped several of my classmates during class and discussed a lot of tech ideas with my classmates.
Taking wednesday a little bit easier seems to have helped. Today I returned to class ready to work and learned a great deal of new tech. There was a lot of progress that happened in my learning and developing of my website today.
The experience has helped me understand how overwhelming some of the technology must be. While they are not only trying to learn the tech, they are also trying to acheive learning goals outside of learning the technology also. This year I will make sure that I am aware of how overwhelming learning so much new tech can be.
Taking wednesday a little bit easier seems to have helped. Today I returned to class ready to work and learned a great deal of new tech. There was a lot of progress that happened in my learning and developing of my website today.
The experience has helped me understand how overwhelming some of the technology must be. While they are not only trying to learn the tech, they are also trying to acheive learning goals outside of learning the technology also. This year I will make sure that I am aware of how overwhelming learning so much new tech can be.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Day 2 of Tech4Educators Class
Today we worked on our websites some more as well as learned about new tech. One of the new things we learned was the WebQuest. We now have to create a webquest of our own. For this upcoming year, I will be teaching three new classes; two of them are similar to ones I have taught before. As a result, I think that I will work on developing some of my content for one of the new classes. I will be teaching a popular fiction class, and the focus will be on older texts that have remained popular for a long period of time. Two texts are Beowulf. One is a novelization of the epic while the second is a graphic novel. Beowulf is one of the oldest popular fiction pieces taught regularly in the classroom. Also, we will be reading War of the Worlds, Planet of the Apes, Alice in Wonderland, and The Hobitt.
In a webquest, I would be looking for students to learn about reasons/ways that the works became so popular initially, and possibly why they have remained so popular since then. One of the major projects that students will need to do is write a paper discussing how/why several of the novels are considered to be popular fiction using time period infromation. The problem that I am having with creating this webquest is the usefulness of it. Most of what I can think of to have the students do would be just as beneficial as a class discussion. How would it be more beneficial for students to go to a Google Books page and read that Tolkien was the first to really fully use his style, when instead I could just have that quick conversation with them?
Any ideas?
In a webquest, I would be looking for students to learn about reasons/ways that the works became so popular initially, and possibly why they have remained so popular since then. One of the major projects that students will need to do is write a paper discussing how/why several of the novels are considered to be popular fiction using time period infromation. The problem that I am having with creating this webquest is the usefulness of it. Most of what I can think of to have the students do would be just as beneficial as a class discussion. How would it be more beneficial for students to go to a Google Books page and read that Tolkien was the first to really fully use his style, when instead I could just have that quick conversation with them?
Any ideas?
Monday, June 21, 2010
Reflection on day 1 of class
Day 1 went well. There were a number of demos of technologies/resources all of which were new to me. After seeing some of the demos, there was time to work with the various tech. I found that I really like using moonfruit.com and weebly.com, but really do not like yola.com for building websites.
While experimenting with both moonfruit and weebly I learned about the strengths and hinderances of each. Moonfruit allows me a greater amount of control over the design of the site as well as allowing the restrict access to certain areas of the site. However, moonfruit limits the number of pages on the free version to fifteen. Because of this, I had to find a way of hosting documents online and linking to them. I decided to use Google Docs. It seems to be working well. Weebly is very easy to use, and I like some of the layouts. However, moonfruit seems to have more options which is ultimately what I am looking for online. I am really excited to continue to work on the website.
Twitter is proving to be difficult. I have spent a lot of time trying to setup several different pieces of it and not necessarily getting veray far with it. One example is that I am having a rediculously difficult time locating my classmates.
While experimenting with both moonfruit and weebly I learned about the strengths and hinderances of each. Moonfruit allows me a greater amount of control over the design of the site as well as allowing the restrict access to certain areas of the site. However, moonfruit limits the number of pages on the free version to fifteen. Because of this, I had to find a way of hosting documents online and linking to them. I decided to use Google Docs. It seems to be working well. Weebly is very easy to use, and I like some of the layouts. However, moonfruit seems to have more options which is ultimately what I am looking for online. I am really excited to continue to work on the website.
Twitter is proving to be difficult. I have spent a lot of time trying to setup several different pieces of it and not necessarily getting veray far with it. One example is that I am having a rediculously difficult time locating my classmates.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Plans for the upcoming class
What do I want to do/create in class this coming week?
I have no idea.
Seriously.
My "creative process" has begun in earnest this week. How do I know? What proof do I have after stating that I have no idea of what I want to do? I've been letting the problem stew in my subconscious for a good week! As a result I have been able to compile a general list of what I'd like to some day have.
*An easy to use, functional web area/presence: Ultimately I would like a place online that is easy to control, access (for all sorts of groups of people, and me!), easy to manage, and is user friendly. I hoped to be able to use the school based web area to create places for each of my classes to go and check on homework and project requirements and access resources. However, the web area was not user friendly for me, and anyone who wanted to access the information would end up with a screen full of tabs open by the end of the time they were done looking at just a couple of items. Also, it was horribly difficult to update the information on the pages.
*Something for use during the summers. During the summers, I have students reading novels and plays and writing papers. I would like something that I could give students access to for the summer where they could ask questions about their summer work, and other students and I could respond. Ideally, the conversations stay visible to the users so that if other students had the same questions they could just read the previous conversations.
*Learn all sorts of new Free-online-technologies! Applications such as Celtx and Audacity hold so much potential for their use in the classroom. I would love to learn about more of these type of applications and have a chance to play with them and incorporate them into lessons.
Beyond this, I will just have to see what the class entails, throw the new information into my creative subconscious and see what happens!
See Y'all Monday!
I have no idea.
Seriously.
My "creative process" has begun in earnest this week. How do I know? What proof do I have after stating that I have no idea of what I want to do? I've been letting the problem stew in my subconscious for a good week! As a result I have been able to compile a general list of what I'd like to some day have.
*An easy to use, functional web area/presence: Ultimately I would like a place online that is easy to control, access (for all sorts of groups of people, and me!), easy to manage, and is user friendly. I hoped to be able to use the school based web area to create places for each of my classes to go and check on homework and project requirements and access resources. However, the web area was not user friendly for me, and anyone who wanted to access the information would end up with a screen full of tabs open by the end of the time they were done looking at just a couple of items. Also, it was horribly difficult to update the information on the pages.
*Something for use during the summers. During the summers, I have students reading novels and plays and writing papers. I would like something that I could give students access to for the summer where they could ask questions about their summer work, and other students and I could respond. Ideally, the conversations stay visible to the users so that if other students had the same questions they could just read the previous conversations.
*Learn all sorts of new Free-online-technologies! Applications such as Celtx and Audacity hold so much potential for their use in the classroom. I would love to learn about more of these type of applications and have a chance to play with them and incorporate them into lessons.
Beyond this, I will just have to see what the class entails, throw the new information into my creative subconscious and see what happens!
See Y'all Monday!
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Copyright Issues and Technology
Both of the articles at the URLs discuss the issue of Fairey using an AP photo to create to iconic Hope poster of Obama. The issue is that the AP is claiming Fairey is in violation of copyright laws. However, the discussion of the copyright laws in the articles suggests that he may not be in violation of the laws. It depends on the interpretation of some words such as significant changes. Also, the articles state that if the meaning of the work is changed through any changes to the original work then it is considered an original work...
In the world of education, this may be relevant because of the amount of media that is used by teachers and students for education. One of the articles argues that photography that is not staged, nature photography and photographing active events, is not art but just capturing the moment. Students, and teachers alike, use photos all the time in presentations and other work to help deliver information. Knowing, and teaching, the difference between acceptable use of none copyrighted material and how to legally use copyrighted material is important to add to curriculum. Education is not a bubble, and students will take with them the ideas about acceptable use they learn in school to college and various jobs in all sectors once they graduate.
However, it is hard to educate students, and know, about copyright laws if they are really as undefined and flexible as the abajournal article seems to imply.
Links:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/arts-news/shepard-fairey-could-lose-obam/
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/hope_for_copyright/
In the world of education, this may be relevant because of the amount of media that is used by teachers and students for education. One of the articles argues that photography that is not staged, nature photography and photographing active events, is not art but just capturing the moment. Students, and teachers alike, use photos all the time in presentations and other work to help deliver information. Knowing, and teaching, the difference between acceptable use of none copyrighted material and how to legally use copyrighted material is important to add to curriculum. Education is not a bubble, and students will take with them the ideas about acceptable use they learn in school to college and various jobs in all sectors once they graduate.
However, it is hard to educate students, and know, about copyright laws if they are really as undefined and flexible as the abajournal article seems to imply.
Links:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/ladaily/arts-news/shepard-fairey-could-lose-obam/
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/hope_for_copyright/
Monday, June 7, 2010
Technology Dream
Dear Technology Patron,
Overall, I think that I am pretty content with the technology that I have. Sure, it's always fun to have more tech to use and have the students play with, but how much more is really needed. What I really miss having at my disposal is the use of mobile computer labs (ones that work anyways). Being able to use these, even on an occasional basis is very helpful. Really, that is the only thing that I would really wish for at this point. I have a projector and a laptop for the classroom. With these, I can accomplish a lot!
P.S. If you could make those mac's and not pc's on the mobile lab as you're writing the check, that would be amazing!!!
Thank You!
Your devout starving teacher (artist).
Overall, I think that I am pretty content with the technology that I have. Sure, it's always fun to have more tech to use and have the students play with, but how much more is really needed. What I really miss having at my disposal is the use of mobile computer labs (ones that work anyways). Being able to use these, even on an occasional basis is very helpful. Really, that is the only thing that I would really wish for at this point. I have a projector and a laptop for the classroom. With these, I can accomplish a lot!
P.S. If you could make those mac's and not pc's on the mobile lab as you're writing the check, that would be amazing!!!
Thank You!
Your devout starving teacher (artist).
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