blog posting #6

Of the four technological tools we learned about on Friday, I was most taken with the possibilities of using diigo. As I discovered from Ryan's excellent presentation, one of the most underrated tools on diigo involves caching websites that are likely to change. This seems promising when used in combination with diigo's ability to let one annotate the website with comments.

One popular and useful assignment English teachers give out involves asking students to annotate/take notes on/talk to the text on a specfic piece of fiction or non-fiction and then turn those annotations/notes/texttalks in. The teacher can then assess students' abilities to extract information, gather main ideas, make connections, identify unknown words, and ask relevant questions. I've only seen this done on paper, however. 

With diigo, I think I could assign students online articles or fiction and ask them to take notes over the computer. Students could then share with me their annotations through diigo. This seems preferable to uploading and downloading 30 pdfs or adobes, and it also seems easier to navigate than a screenshot, especially if the text is more than one page. Particularly when it comes to preparing students to read at a college level, reading on the computer is an increasingly important skill and diigo potentially provides a tool for us as teachers to assess students' digital reading comprehension strategies.

blog posting #5

I think the idea of having an online resume is interesting. If I ever have business cards, I might put the link to my weebly. I could also add the weebly to my gmail signature.

I think the idea of using angry birds in a math class is interesting. If I teach math, I might use that strategy.

blog posting #4

Let's encourage students to spend 21 billion hours reading. This seems like a better idea than encouraging students to spend 21 billion hours playing video games. So I'm old-fashioned and reactionary. I'm also right. There are valuable skills to be gained from reading, particularly for students under the age of 21. Instead of 10,000 hours playing video games, let's make students into reading virtuosos. Reading is important because it allows humans to better participate in enlightened societies. By developing reading and writing skills, students can better represent themselves and their interests in a global marketplace and economy. Student who read successfully have a better time finding meaningful and lasting relationships and communicating their ideas.

Mcgonigal does well to quote Malcolm Gladwell, although an article he wrote for the New Yorker offers better insight into the question of team dynamics and individual success. Gladwell explains that two heads are not necessarily better than one, and thousands of heads are definitely not better than one. Instead, we should be providing students with an"environment quiet enough to allow them to think."Although we want students to work cooperatively with others, we should not wholeheartedly embrace this strategy in place of proven successful strategies.

Most importantly, I don't think the Ted talk we watched took into account the discrete boundaries between our reality and alternate realities. In the latter, the trust of which Mcgonigal speaks so highly exists between gamers only because there are no repercussions. When internet users take trust too far and try to combine internet realities with the real world there can and often are financial, pecuniary and emotional consequences. MSNBC's To Catch a Predator, and many of us who are old enough to have received emails from Nigerian royalty should certainly remember the consequences of forming cyber relationships. The opportunities for psychic exploration that exist in the creation of non-reality allows users a freedom that exists only because of its distance from actual reality. The freedom is in leaving cares and worries (and homework) behind us. In the real world we would not implicitly trust others with matters of national security, economics or politics. Sending a money order to Lagos is one thing, sending nuclear launch codes is quite another.  

blog posting #3

I really like the idea of using aviary as a means of better communicating with my students. In an ideal world I like to do at least one hour of cardio every day. Instead of listening to the Rocky soundtrack on repeat, I think I could just listen to my students' daily podcasts. We've been working a lot with the concept of exit tickets; and using a one-minute podcast to list the main ideas students have learned from class seems an excellent way for them to consolidate information.

Additionally, we have consistently discussed ways to make the classroom feel safe. One idea I had is to create a hotline for students who wish to voice any anxieties they are experiencing in class (or outside of class). This would make me feel a lot better than giving out my cell phone number to students. Often leaving a voice recording can feel more intimate than writing an email or note. There is probably even voice-scrambling technology if students wish to remain anonymous. I hope having such an option will allow students to feel more comfortable both in and out of the classroom.

As an English major I like to analyze tone, and there are simply more dimensions of tone when listening to the diction and intonations students use than there are when reading words on the page. In this respect podcasts appear to be a very promising way of communicating with my students - or rather of having my students communicate with me.

blog posting #2

In presenting an issue as essential to the future of our society as the New York City soda ban, the students in my English classes shall grapple with this issue in such a manner befitting the gravity of America's future. In this sense, my students will explore the literature of Bernard Malamud and Franz Kafka; particularly the novels The Fixer and The Castle, respectively. In these books the protagonists become embroiled in the slow yet certain machinations of darkening governments. Whether in Eastern Europe or here in the United States, students must confront the fragility of liberty. In this unit, students will be able to perform literary analysis, expository writing and persuasive writings.

When writing literary analysis, students will investigate literary devices such as foreshadowing, irony, symbolism and intertextuality. In writing expository and persuasive essays, students will investigate the merits of the science and economics behind the health care ban and inform as well as convince their peers of their opinions.

This unit will end in a summative interpretive dance.

blog posting #1

 The thing I most took away from Friday's class was the really useful question: why do you want to be a teacher? Even though I sort of answered that question in the process of applying to the secmac program, it was great to revisit the idea of teaching after a few weeks of hard work. It's one thing to say, "I want to be a teacher because I want to help children become educated and have access to a college education"; and it's quite another to understand the really deep implications and responsibilities involved after working with real live children. It's terrific to take a moment to pause and consider the wonderful interactions I've had with my (incoming) seventh graders.

 Speaking of (incoming) seventh graders, another thing I realized in Friday's class is that they know way more than I do about technology. So the key is, and hence the title of the class, teaching with technology instead of just teaching technology to students. They don't need me to explain how computers work (thank god), but instead I need to find a way to work with computers or text messaging or what have you in order to enrich students' learning. But thank goodness there's no MTTC test about technology!