I agree with the articles and think that using technology in a classroom is not only beneficial to the learning process, but beneficial to their future lives as well. For better or worse the world is ran on computers and other computer based technology and those who can’t use them are at a distinct disadvantage. I know from my attempts to procure employment after college ended, every job had something to with some form of computer based technology or another. Knowing this I will do my best to use technology in the classroom, and if access is limited I will do my best to improvise.
In a classroom where outside access to technology is limited, I will still use technology as best as possible, and figure out ways to give students more access. I can be available after school to allow students more time on the computer to do their assignments, I can locate public libraries where there is computer access, and there are other steps you can take. It might seem unfair to use technology as much as possible when some of the students to not have access to it, but not doing so would slow their development and hurt them in the future.
If a student is disadvantage and cannot have them time after school or access to a public library, using technology may be a bit trickier. Trickier but not impossible, I can take steps as a teacher to even help these students to use the technology. One example I can come up with off the top of my head is give those students more time to do technology based assignments, so that sometime in their other classes or free periods they can use that technology to get it done.
If a student does not know how to use technology it will be a detriment to their ability to procure meaningful employment in the future. So if I do not do my best to make sure kids can adequately use technology I will be doing them a disservice. As a teacher our goal is to teach our content to mastery level, but in reality our job is mold young people into adults who can conquer their part of the world upon leaving the classroom. With that in mind not using technology or not teaching them to use it, I won’t be preparing them to the best of my ability for the world that awaits them outside of that school.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
an ode to powerpoint
I do personally like PowerPoint as a means for presenting lessons, because I am for anything that gives someone something else to look at then my flabby self. In a classroom students tend to look all around when someone is talking to them, sure they try to look at the person speaking as much as possible but it just gets awkward after a while, and power point fixes that. Power point gives the students something to fixate their gaze on, and as a teacher if you put useful information on that, it helps concrete the learning process. So as long as the teacher doesn’t make the power point to busy or distracting it can be a very useful product to have in addition to your lecture. Also it gives the students a great opportunity to write down notes, because usually the students will copy everything down that you present to them in a power point, it’s kind of like magic. So if parts of your lecture are beneficial to them passing the test, put that info on the power point because students will write it down like the drones they sometimes are (drones in a good way, not a bad way). The only con of power point is if a teacher uses it instead of actually lecturing. So if they put all the info on a power point and don’t really explain it, it’s just a gigantic waste of time. So to sum up this seemingly long winded point, power point is very useful in a classroom if you do it correctly.
As for the presentations that were done in the classroom, I feel that they were done very well. For the most part people didn’t make their power points to busy and used them to enhance the information that they were conveying within their presentations. The biggest fundamental flaw that people make when using power point is putting too much on a slide, and for the most part our class didn’t fall into that trap. I really liked the videos and interesting pictures that people put in their slides, I really never thought about making the power point entertaining as well thought provoking, and bravo to my fellow students who did that. For example Maya’s presentation was very good because she used a experience she had, coupled with amazing pictures to teach Spanish, and oddly enough I now know how to say monkey in Spanish, and if a monkey is ever trying to kill me in a Spanish speaking country I can scream for help, so thank you Maya. My point is that the interesting pictures helped cement the Spanish words she was trying to teach, and because they were pictures she personally took, I was a 1000x more interested in them, than I would have been if she just got them off Google. As for Rachel she really did teach me what her presentation was about (even though I cannot remember the fancy science word she used), because her pictures and videos were entertaining as well as thought provoking in regards to her presentation.
In our class I was completely interested in all of the presentations because these people are my colleagues and I am pretty sure they can show me a presentation on grass growing and I will be as engaged like I was watching Star Wars for the first time. As for my fellow classmates (and believe me I throw myself into this group) I think we need to realize that our students won’t be that engaged, I am not saying there were some presentations that were boring, but doing something to keep a 16 year old kid whose only real interest in the world is video games and naughty parts engaged will definitely help. A good example of this is what Chelsea did, her presentation might not have been that interesting to that 16 year old kid (for me I thought it was awesome and I am already making my own olive oil) but the fact she gave us examples of the food, would have definitely made that kid a lot more interested. Power point presentations coupled with a lecture is probably pretty boring to young kids, but if we as a teacher can do something to perk up interest during it would be a great help to those students. I think best example of not doing this was my presentation, I presented a lot of pretty boring facts and only did something funny at the end, I really should have tried to sprinkle in some humor or something that would have woken up the students in the middle. That would be my only suggestion to my colleagues on their power points, but again I do really feel they all did a really good job.
I touched briefly on what I would have different in my own power point in the last paragraph. But even more than doing something to keep waning eyes awake, I think I would have found a way to convey the same information in a more entertaining way. I probably would have sprinkled more pictures, maybe a little less info on each slide, and used more metaphors to convey the same info. My colleagues paid attention to the whole thing, but their respectful adults, but I am not sure a 16 year old kid would have given me that same luxury with my power point; I sure as hell wouldn’t have when I was 16. My topic was inherently boring, and will always be a little bit boring, it is my challenge as a teacher to find a way to convey that information in a way that will make students engaged and listening, I believe I failed horribly at that. I would have put a video in the middle to break up the monotony of just constant information, I might have shown a picture of Nancy Pelosi next to the crypt keeper from Tales from the Crypt to show students the similarities between the two (I really wouldn’t have done that, I just like to bring up the fact she looks like him as much as possible), I would have done something that could have entertained my students. I failed at keeping my non existing students engaged, and that’s what I need to work on for next time.
So in conclusion, I must say I do like power point as a means of presenting lessons. My colleagues showed me great ways to do it, and that I did not realize could be done. So I suck at power points but hopefully this class and my colleagues presentations will show me what I can improve upon, or I’ll just become the boring teacher whose students use the class as a nap period.
As for the presentations that were done in the classroom, I feel that they were done very well. For the most part people didn’t make their power points to busy and used them to enhance the information that they were conveying within their presentations. The biggest fundamental flaw that people make when using power point is putting too much on a slide, and for the most part our class didn’t fall into that trap. I really liked the videos and interesting pictures that people put in their slides, I really never thought about making the power point entertaining as well thought provoking, and bravo to my fellow students who did that. For example Maya’s presentation was very good because she used a experience she had, coupled with amazing pictures to teach Spanish, and oddly enough I now know how to say monkey in Spanish, and if a monkey is ever trying to kill me in a Spanish speaking country I can scream for help, so thank you Maya. My point is that the interesting pictures helped cement the Spanish words she was trying to teach, and because they were pictures she personally took, I was a 1000x more interested in them, than I would have been if she just got them off Google. As for Rachel she really did teach me what her presentation was about (even though I cannot remember the fancy science word she used), because her pictures and videos were entertaining as well as thought provoking in regards to her presentation.
In our class I was completely interested in all of the presentations because these people are my colleagues and I am pretty sure they can show me a presentation on grass growing and I will be as engaged like I was watching Star Wars for the first time. As for my fellow classmates (and believe me I throw myself into this group) I think we need to realize that our students won’t be that engaged, I am not saying there were some presentations that were boring, but doing something to keep a 16 year old kid whose only real interest in the world is video games and naughty parts engaged will definitely help. A good example of this is what Chelsea did, her presentation might not have been that interesting to that 16 year old kid (for me I thought it was awesome and I am already making my own olive oil) but the fact she gave us examples of the food, would have definitely made that kid a lot more interested. Power point presentations coupled with a lecture is probably pretty boring to young kids, but if we as a teacher can do something to perk up interest during it would be a great help to those students. I think best example of not doing this was my presentation, I presented a lot of pretty boring facts and only did something funny at the end, I really should have tried to sprinkle in some humor or something that would have woken up the students in the middle. That would be my only suggestion to my colleagues on their power points, but again I do really feel they all did a really good job.
I touched briefly on what I would have different in my own power point in the last paragraph. But even more than doing something to keep waning eyes awake, I think I would have found a way to convey the same information in a more entertaining way. I probably would have sprinkled more pictures, maybe a little less info on each slide, and used more metaphors to convey the same info. My colleagues paid attention to the whole thing, but their respectful adults, but I am not sure a 16 year old kid would have given me that same luxury with my power point; I sure as hell wouldn’t have when I was 16. My topic was inherently boring, and will always be a little bit boring, it is my challenge as a teacher to find a way to convey that information in a way that will make students engaged and listening, I believe I failed horribly at that. I would have put a video in the middle to break up the monotony of just constant information, I might have shown a picture of Nancy Pelosi next to the crypt keeper from Tales from the Crypt to show students the similarities between the two (I really wouldn’t have done that, I just like to bring up the fact she looks like him as much as possible), I would have done something that could have entertained my students. I failed at keeping my non existing students engaged, and that’s what I need to work on for next time.
So in conclusion, I must say I do like power point as a means of presenting lessons. My colleagues showed me great ways to do it, and that I did not realize could be done. So I suck at power points but hopefully this class and my colleagues presentations will show me what I can improve upon, or I’ll just become the boring teacher whose students use the class as a nap period.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Is texting really the root of all evil when it comes to writing?
Is chat-speak destroying English? First of can we please find a different name for this new language then chat-speak, because that word makes me want to destroy the English language. I think I have to say no that it is not destroying the English language, because I really do think we as Teachers should be able to teach students the difference between the two. I agree with Greg Monfils when he wrote “They know the difference indeed, I’d go as far as to say that their command of chat-speak is directly proportional to their awareness of that the fashion of chat-speak subverts traditional rules of written English” (Monfils, 2007). Students know that the language that they are using in texts and other forms of electronic communication is not the way English is supposed to be written, but they do it for convenience. A standard text message is 160 characters and to get a full thought into a 160 characters one has to use shortened abbreviations of words; it’s not a direct assault on the written language, it is just a mode of fitting everything you want to say in a shortened space.
Above all lets relax when it comes to chat-speak, because shouldn’t we be encouraged that our students are actively participating in reading and writing? Isn’t it a fear of teachers that students will lose these skills all together, but now were complaining because they are doing them but just doing them in a non-conventional way. When I was a kid I used slang that was different from my parents and teachers, and of course I put that slang into my papers as much as possible, what’s the difference between that and chat-speak (I seriously cannot stress enough how much I hate that word)? Mofils explains it in a different way when he wrote “A teenage experimenting with a sprinkling of profanities in their conversation with peers will not suddenly forget how to converse with their grandmother” (Mofils, 2007). Students know the difference between chat-speak (errrrrr) and the kings English, please give them the benefit of the doubt. I think the only person who is afraid of chat-speak destroying the English language is lazy teachers who don’t feel the desire to stress the importance of learning how to correctly use the language, and that is shame on them. Don’t blame the technology or the new ways students use to communicate with it, blame the teacher who isn’t skilled enough to teach the kings English.
One last point when it comes to chat-speak, is it really what’s destroying the English language or more importantly the students ability to write it? I think the biggest culprit to destroying students ability to use the language is the program I am using right now to write this blog, Microsoft Word, oh yes I’m coming after you Bill Gates. I’ve been using Microsoft word since easily the third grade, and it and its stupid spell check has hindered my progress with the language at least a 100x more than texting and instant messaging ever has. I literally cannot spell to save my life, I just can’t do it, and there are some words that I misspell every time. But with spell check I can just fix it with a click of a mouse, so there is really no reason for me to ever learn how to properly spell these words. Microsoft Word even fixes grammar now (it may have in the past but seriously who remembers the third grade, or really anything that happened before college), so now I don’t even have to know how to correctly use a semi colon, or the correct there, because lovely old Word will fix it for me. So there teachers lay off the chat-speak (hold on I have to bang my head against the desk a few times, because I hate that word with such a passion), because your making students type every assignment in Microsoft word is killing their command of the language more than that language I refuse to type one more time. Just for giggles I waited till the end to use spell check for this blog and there were over a 50 words misspelled and ton of grammar issues, so there I proved my point, lay off the language that shall not be named and blame Bill Gates for hiring some MAT grad to create the spell check in Word.
Above all lets relax when it comes to chat-speak, because shouldn’t we be encouraged that our students are actively participating in reading and writing? Isn’t it a fear of teachers that students will lose these skills all together, but now were complaining because they are doing them but just doing them in a non-conventional way. When I was a kid I used slang that was different from my parents and teachers, and of course I put that slang into my papers as much as possible, what’s the difference between that and chat-speak (I seriously cannot stress enough how much I hate that word)? Mofils explains it in a different way when he wrote “A teenage experimenting with a sprinkling of profanities in their conversation with peers will not suddenly forget how to converse with their grandmother” (Mofils, 2007). Students know the difference between chat-speak (errrrrr) and the kings English, please give them the benefit of the doubt. I think the only person who is afraid of chat-speak destroying the English language is lazy teachers who don’t feel the desire to stress the importance of learning how to correctly use the language, and that is shame on them. Don’t blame the technology or the new ways students use to communicate with it, blame the teacher who isn’t skilled enough to teach the kings English.
One last point when it comes to chat-speak, is it really what’s destroying the English language or more importantly the students ability to write it? I think the biggest culprit to destroying students ability to use the language is the program I am using right now to write this blog, Microsoft Word, oh yes I’m coming after you Bill Gates. I’ve been using Microsoft word since easily the third grade, and it and its stupid spell check has hindered my progress with the language at least a 100x more than texting and instant messaging ever has. I literally cannot spell to save my life, I just can’t do it, and there are some words that I misspell every time. But with spell check I can just fix it with a click of a mouse, so there is really no reason for me to ever learn how to properly spell these words. Microsoft Word even fixes grammar now (it may have in the past but seriously who remembers the third grade, or really anything that happened before college), so now I don’t even have to know how to correctly use a semi colon, or the correct there, because lovely old Word will fix it for me. So there teachers lay off the chat-speak (hold on I have to bang my head against the desk a few times, because I hate that word with such a passion), because your making students type every assignment in Microsoft word is killing their command of the language more than that language I refuse to type one more time. Just for giggles I waited till the end to use spell check for this blog and there were over a 50 words misspelled and ton of grammar issues, so there I proved my point, lay off the language that shall not be named and blame Bill Gates for hiring some MAT grad to create the spell check in Word.
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