Reading Response #5

I read an article in "The Council Chronicle" put out by The National Council of Teachers of English called "Poetry Can Free Student Voices". I was drawn to this article because lately I have been feeling like all of the writing I do for classes I am taking contains nothing of myself and my opinions; I feel like I am writing to a model just to get the grade, and write exactly what is expected of me at all times. I was very interested to see what this article talked about, and if I thought that any of it was actually realistic - something I thought I could incorporate.

The article is about a high school English teacher, John O'Connor, who just published a book called Wordplaygrounds: Reading, Writing, and Performing Poetry in the English Classroom. I was pleasantly surprised at this article, especially after the disappointment I had when reading the article about rap for the Tapped In assignment. This man has a lot of good ideas of how to incorporate all kinds of creative writing assignments into the classroom, not just poetry. I definitely agree with his thoughts that students should be able to express themselves creatively through language; I think this is one of the best ways of learning how to appreciate language.

On that note, I also think there are a lot of ways that technology could be incorporated into this man's ideas. He talked about creating personal narratives, and that obviously could be done using a digital movie (just like we talked about in class). He also had a really cool idea of performing and recording poetry with music behind it....just audio, but it sounded really neat. I think that it would be cool to do some kind of online literature circle too; maybe for a story or poem that is a collaboration by a lot of students. Creating a power point presentation with a limit of the number of words per slide really made me realize the importance of words, so that might be an interesting way to do something....like creating a poem using very few words and a lot of visuals.

Reading Response #3

First of all, I thought that the way this "reading" was presented was very interesting. I think it is very neat that the reading was actually a sound bite...

As for the information in the report, I can definitely see both sides of the argument. I definitely see that Power Point can be an extremely useful tool. When we explored it earlier in this semester, I though of various ways that it could be used very effectively in classrooms. However, I also think that the opposing opinion had some very good points. It can be daunting to think that students may look at a huge piece of information and think that the only important parts are a few bullets. I do think that it is important for students to expand their minds and to look at things from various perspectives.

I think that if Power Point is used in a proper manner then some of these points will be null and void. It all depends on how the teacher presents the Power Point. If he or she makes it seem like the power point presentatin contains the only important things and that the rest of the information is not important, then the students will also feel this way. However, if a teacher presents the power point as a supplementary tool and encourages more thought on the subject, then I think that the power point will be very useful. Basically, it all comes down to how the teacher uses and presents the technology.

Reflection on Digital Story

I really really really liked learning how to use this software to create a digital story. I had never heard of one before we started this assignment, and I think that it is such a cool idea. I am sure that I will use this software again.

I enjoyed making my digital story. The topic that I chose was something that means a lot to me, and it was neat to be able to tell this story. I was able to delve into my own thoughts and emotions, and I am really proud of the finished project. Creating the digital story was definitely a challenge for me; I ran into a few technological glitches as I went along but my biggest problem was limiting the amount of narration I used. I am an extremely wordy person, and I would much rather write a paper than create a visual project. I think that this was a good assignment for me because it challenged me to explore other ways of telling a story. I think that telling this story through pictures rather than words probably expresses it better, but it was difficult for me to grasp this concept at first. Other than that, the creation of my story went pretty smoothly. The software was easy to learn how to use, and I liked experimenting with the different transitions and effects (although I ended up using only simple ones).

I can think of a few ways to reinvent this project to use in a class that I will eventually teach. The students could use this software to create a sort of advanced type of book report - they have to tell the story of the novel they read using minimal words and lots of pictures so that I and other students would be able to understand what happened. They could also use this to create a sort of report on the history of a type of literature or a biography on a writer. Also, I think an interesting assignment would be to tell their story as a reader or writer, depending on the type of class I am teaching. I think a really cool project for a group of high school seniors to do would be to tell the story of something that defined them in high school and how they look at it (this would be the kind of thing they could look back on in ten years - almost like a yearbook that talked but shorter, smaller, and more specific). In any of these assignment types, I think it is important that students learn there are many ways to tell a story, and through these assignments they would also hopefully begin to understand the power of words. In an assignment like this, it is really important what words you choose to use because you can only use so many.

As a teacher, I could use this type of project for the same types of things. It would be an interesting way to present an overview of information for students about an author, historical time period or piece of literature. I also think that seeing a personal project created by a student would allow me to get better insight into their mindset. This is a tool that could be used in many situations and for a lot of different types of assignments.

Reading Response #2

I think that the ideas in this article are very insightful. I definitely agree that images are an important part of learning about history. In high school, I had a history teacher who always tried to incorporate images and pictures in our lessons, and I think that these visualizations definitely helped me to gain a better perspective. I liked all of the ideas for projects that were incorporated in the article, and I think that I would be able to encorporate many of these into a classroom. Not only are images such as these important in a regular history class, but they could be very useful to comprehend the historical sense around a work of literature. It might be a fun activity to examine various covers of a novel through time, and to follow along with some of the steps denoted in the article.
As a student, I think that images help you to gain a better understanding for the feel of the time. Digital images and movies also can make a class much more exciting; if you are visually stimulated, I feel like you will also be more stimulated in general.
I thought that this article really explored some interesting ideas and explained some basic principles surrounding the use of digial storytelling and use of images in teaching history. These ideas and principles can be incorporated into other types of classes and subject matters. I think that ideas such as these will be very useful to me once I am actually a practicing teacher.

Reflection on Power Point

In creating this Power Point presentation, I learned a few things. First of all, Power Point is not nearly as frightening as I thought it was. It was actually pretty easy to pick up on, and I can definitely see how useful it could be in a classroom. I liked that I could bring in pictures from various websites, as well as digital pictures that I had taken myself. I also liked that I could flood the screen with tons of visualizations; in my exposure to Power Point in high school, it was mostly just lectures transposed onto the screen. I had fun playing with the various backgrounds, fonts, and special effects, but I could see how those would become a "time sucker" when students were using Power Point. I think that through this assignment, I was definitely able to see a better way to utilize the software.

I think that Power Point can be used for so many things in a classroom. I think that it would be a very interesting way to begin a new lesson or section of the curriculum. As a teacher, I could create a Power Point that would visually overview what is coming up in the class. It is a way to grab the students' attentions from the very beginning, as well as give them images to later associate with important parts of the lesson. I also think that this is a great tool to have the students use, and a great way to get them to participate in discussion of a work of literature. As a teacher, I could divide the students up into pairs and have them create a strongly visual presentation of a section of a novel, an event in a story, or an overarching theme of a work. I think that there are so many possibilities with this tool. I could even have the students use it to tell their interpretations of a poem or other work using other images that come to their minds, and then verbally explain to the rest of the class why they chose the images they did. I definitely think that Power Point is a tool that I will be using as a teacher in the classroom very frequently.

Technology Autobiography

As a student, my exposure to technology was limited. As my school system progressed and I got older, I was exposed to more and more technologies, but I still am not completely proficient in the use of computers. The first time I ever used a computer was in elementary school to play Oregon Trail. We went occasionally to the computer lab, but it was mostly to play “educational games”. In middle school, we were required to take an introduction class to computers, which was mostly a keyboarding class. Also in middle school, I was part of a yearbook staff; we used some software like Page maker to design spreads, but I was never very proficient in this software. In high school, we were required to take another introductory class for computers in which we were taught the basic use of Microsoft Word and Excel. After that, my technological training in school was finished. I continued to use my personal computer and printer to write papers for classes in Microsoft Word, and used the Internet for both school work and entertainment. My teachers used Power Point occasionally, but used overhead machines more frequently, and normally just put their overhead notes on the Power Point or overhead. Other than the sparse use of Power Point presentations, the only other technologies that my teachers used were V.C.R.s.

In my opinion, when I was a student I should have received a lot better training in their use. My high school offered a wide variety of computer classes in which I was just not that interested, and these classes were not taken very frequently. In the required classes, I feel that my instruction was both limited and sparse. We were only instructed in the use of two types of software and even that amount of instruction was small.

I think that in education today computers should and do play a rather large role. Nothing will ever replace a piece of paper and a pencil, but I think that there are many possibilities for the use of computers in the classroom. As our society progresses and becomes more advanced, we learn more and more ways to use technology in the classroom and new technologies are developed that have the potential to be used for education. As a future teacher, I want to learn ways to both incorporate the use of many types of technologies into my classes and to teach these technologies to my students.

Reading Response #1

In my opinion, this article from techlearning.com acurately depicts some of the current issues surrounding technology in education, as well as the lives of young people in today's society. Today's children are continually being exposed to different types of technology and are increasingly proficient in its use. Students can use the Internet for research and to communicate with other people, and are often a lot better at the use of these technologies than their elders. The article also does a good job of depicting some of the problems with this increased use of technology in younger age groups; there are online predators, viruses, and hackers out there waiting to take advantage of young people who don't know any better. As a student, I think that the Internet is one of the most useful tools for research and communication. However, I also think that it is important that students be educated on the potential dangers of its use and taught how to protect themselves from these problems. As use of technology in everyday life increases, it is important for students to be taught in their schools the proper use of these new technologies. There will always be an issue as to the correct balance of allowing students freedom to explore using new technologies and protecting them from people merely out there to take advantage of them. I also think that as new technologies are developed, there is an ever constant need for teachers to be educated on their proper use and potential problems. In turn, these teachers need to be able to impart to their students the importance of responsible and legal use of Internet sites and such.