Finally able to post again!

Wow, after all these finally signing in worked!! So much that hasn't been posted here.
I really wanted to post a blog about the podcasting. At first, I hated the project because I got stuck with a group of guys who really didn't have any interest in doing the project OR interest in picking a topic. I had many suggestions but felt pretty outcast. Was it because I am a chick or because I am not a hot chick? However, once a topic was picked, working on our "Schmitter" podcast was great fun. See? I'm not that bad...
Admittedly, I did a lot of the fine tuning where/when my fellow team members overlooked weak areas and I can't help but be proud that it was my last minute adjustments that made the podcast go so well and with such a clean appearance. If I had a MAC I would make podcasts of my own every week.
The web 2.0 project I am much less enthusiastic about. Most of the programs that were still available were very wonky and seemed homemade to me. I ended up making my presentation about "Flash Paint" and well.... there just isn't much to say about it. I have run two pages short on my power point which I will be presenting tomorrow in class and simply have no idea what to do. There aren't many ways to use this program, you go in and you draw and save your work.
The week before last I had to miss my first evening class to go to the Dr. and we talked about scavenger hunts. As a future art-teacher I know these can be a very good way to keep students engaged as well as interested. I was sent on many a hunt as a student and we never knew why we were outside searching for whatever it was we were supposed to be gathering until we came back into the room and the lesson was started.

Creating A Website

We are going to be creating websites for class and I wonder how well I will be able to keep up in this process. I know now, what kind of website I want to create. I hope to parallel the content with my course project for my Assessment and Evaluation class.
We will need to create a lesson with two assessments, the first as a pretest or formative assessment and the second acting as a summative assessment. Because I plan to distribute my assessments to 10 adults instead of within a classroom, where teaching the corresponding lesson would be included in the process, I am going to use my website to post the content of my lesson. I will use brochures with information to give each person I am assessing but also offer the website for them to use in learning the information in lieu of my instructing them.
In class we did our NETS presentations on powerpoint. Suffice to say, I think our group did well on presenting a good pair of slides but none of the group members actually prepared to present. Because I did all the work on the powerpoint slides I thought it would only be fair for other members to take some part in the presentation. When asked if I would present the content I politely declined. Last week was a very bad week, I was so exhausted that I could barely keep up with what we were working on and at this point do not really remember all that we discussed by the time we started working on websites. Hopefully this week will be much more fruitful and clear.
Things to find out tomorrow: Will our websites be the same ones we created for class? When will these be due vs. our presentations? Very confused right now about what projects lie ahead.

Class Again...

So after what seemed more like a month our class was able to meet last night for the first time since the snow came a week ago. It was good to learn how different the Google Earth experience would be on school computers vs. at home. Having navigated with more ease in class meant perhaps I'm not as bad with computers as first feared and just lacking high powered equipment. There wasn't much we talked about, that I can remember, that I didn't already have an understanding of. We went over the spreadsheet assignment. It has been looming over me for a week or so and nothing done so with intentions to work on it today, last night I found myself getting a good head start on it until 4am. As we went over them in class though and I worked from a mock spreadsheet, much of what we discussed two weeks earlier came back to me rather quickly.
We talked about Powerpoint presentations and what works and doesn't work. Included in that list of guidelines about how to give a strong presentation, were points instilled in my mind many years ago now back in highschool when we were coached on giving ppt presentations for our seniour projects. Face the audience, speak/act in a professional manner, don't overload the slides but make them clear and concise, and keep them engaged. I didn't say aloud in class however, that chewing gum, slouching, saying um, and fidgeting really detract from a professional presentation. Though I admit I freeze up with nerves giving one and find it hard to act as confidently as I rehearse; I've sat through many painful presentations in college where my peers didn't seem to understand there is a difference between casualism and professionalism.
Good class. Went home feeling on top of things and dread the push and pull of yet another project on the horizon.

Google Earth

Wow. All I can say is, maybe I am not as saavy with the internet as I thought I was. This last week, as I have not needed to be in class since last Tues afternoon as a result of the delicious snow, I have come and gone from Google Earth and various other web 2.0 programs at leisure. In all, I must've spent about 10 hours online exploring these and didn't really accomplish much. Maybe I am too overwhelmed by all my new options or just not using them right. I just couldn't seem to accomplish anything I set out to do.
My first experiment which I approached with great anticipation was Remember the Milk, a program that acts as an online planner/reminder. I figured this could be very useful because, when I have important things to get done and they are noted in my planner, it's when the planner has been tucked away in my bookbag for some time while I am off doing other things that I completely miss the reminders. This way, at least when I am online, I can receive the reminders via my instant messenger. IF it could be useful to me, I imagined how I could have students make use of this funky little online organizer to keep track of their work. However, it couldn't less confusing on how to add appointments and such. Again, it's either too complicated or more complicated then needs to be or I am missing something. Any other program I tried to explore just wouldn't well on my computer because of slow connection. If they didn't require endless download/installation processes, the programs were just too thick for my skimpy little connection to carry and eventually got closed out.
These programs probably work and might even be really helpful, especially in a classroom; but there are so many and for the less saavy or those like myself with more inferior technology at hand, they can pretty much be deemed useless and a waste of time.
I loved Google Earth but couldn't make it do what I wanted. It was interesting to see different views of places I go, some places (like Coney Island) even had street views you could click on to see actual photographs of that spot. I attempted to upload some of my own photos through their program but never found out how to make them appear on the maps. There should be better instructions, step by step, to walk newcomers through each aspect.

Class 3- Groundhog's Day

So whether or not old P. Phil saw his shadow I don't know, but what I do know is that it feels like winter with the wonderful snow! Today felt like a very productive day despite waking up hurting all over, call it the cold damp weather or old age but some days it really hurts to get out of bed. Even with the looming threat of snow, and in fact because of it, we really got alot done. We started by having a discussion about the difference between Summative and Formative assessments. This comes in handy because I have conveniently picked up another class this semester that deals with assessments and until tonight, despite having referred to these multiple times in class, I was unsure exactly what they meant. Summative focuses on the long-term learning and assesses, essentially, if the teacher had bascially done their job in teaching students what they need to know. Formative assessments go hand in hand with instructional activities and occur more frequently, because they help the teacher determine at what point in learning each student is with the lesson. Therefore with Formative assessments the teacher has the opportunity to remediate if necessary; whereas with Summative assessments, although they may be used in a formative way/more frequently the more or less cap the front and back ends of the learning period such that the end results come after the point where help may have been needed.
On to our excel spreadsheet assignments. Excel, got it. It sounds or feels eerily too easy after having the in-class demo on the basics of Excel but I shall give it my best effort. We discussed how to calculate weighted grade averages, this following our previous discussion about assessments in schools.
Teachers really have alot of work to do, I think it's poor logic to assume that teachers need yet more pressure added in regards to finely balancing their many duties-mandatory test prep included, like an act of juggling eggs with satin mittens on. I can understand teacher accountability to a certain degree, there being a certain set of obligations but teaching is NOT like working a production line, where all the goods being churned out are identical and predictable. It isn't fair to assume every teaching situation will have the same turn out at all times, and what of difficult students who really don't care to be in school and come just for the free lunches? How is that a teacher's fault such that they should take the blame for that student's weak performance?? As a future Art teacher, I know we face hell because the core curriculum teachers view Art as a dummy class because it does not involve standards testing and such, but it is just as important within a school as any, if not more for some students. There needs to be less focus on just math and science because not every student is going to move onto a career where these are needed, not fair. Japanese students score tremendously high in math, they also spend most of their year, all day, all week, in school; suicide among teens is the highest in the world. High math and high demand high pressure lives vs. ok math for those who won't need it and happy people.

Class 2: Jan 26

So, today in class we hit a bunch of topics. Either I was more awake than last week or I've settled in more because class made much more sense. The classroom of tomorrow, so to speak, that of the 21st century is an interesting topic. It is difficult to not allow my personal feelings about technology interfere with discussions however.
Even in trying to recollect the points made in class during our discussion, it's difficult to embrace them positively by putting my personal opinions aside. The classroom for the 21st century will not be a traditional setting, where the teacher is the leading hand. We first spent time deciphering the difference between digital natives and digital immigrants. One, the digital native, represents those whose minds have developed around the language of techonology thus their minds function in somewhat different patterns to those of their opponent. Whereas the opposite are those, the immigrants, whose minds were not and have only come to enter the digital age as foreigners learning a new language. The barriers between the two peoples creat conflict in the modern classroom. The success of young learners in the modern classroom, where instructional procedures are dwindling rather unsteadily along the methodology of old learning, is at stake and adapting to these new fast paced styles of learning seems to be what is considered the only solution. I differ somewhat in my idea about reforming an entire institution simply as a result of an overdriven movement or craze for rapidly advancing technology.
While I remain a user of technology, all things in moderation remains my stance. I hardly think eliminating instruction in schools on ho to do pretty much anything by using our brains to accomplish is the best solution. Again, why should education change because people have become too dependent on computers to do their thinking? Lessen their workload? With all this time saving, why are so many people facing greater stress and time restriction than ever before?? Saving time by eliminating the thinking process of editing our own writing and such so that we may devote greater time to playing games, texting etc just looks in my old eyes to be a sure sign that we are becomming inherently lazy and overstimulated!! If the minds have changed, take some of it away so that they can learn. we don't need all these gadgets and programs that we are saying should be accomodated in the classroom because children would rather use them. Why should learning have to be fun when it's about learning something and not having fun?? Again, maybe the possibility that kids are products of overstimulation and instant gratification because of weak parenting is to blame for their lack of focus in school.
Has anyone bothered to ask, despite the increasing advances and dependency on it and convenience of technology, which is something I can't change; when does it become enough is enough? Too much?? Just because it is very much happening doesn't mean it's good. We're getting too close to that apparently, as I've been finding out in class and I really fear how helpless people will be all too soon. I wait with all too much eagerness for the movement towards reverting to the old ways, towards preserving some bastion of human skill where people still use their minds and bodies, and decide to just toss it all out the window. I do very well without the cell phone I've had only since last year and penning loved ones on paper with ink, handwritten in ink.
Back to class, creating an environment where learning is a shared activity should be and needs to be interactional. This is true. Cram studying is not a new phenomena, nor is test anxiety, so we need to make learning relevant to students' lives by introducing information in a way that will allow students to be both engaged and able to make a connection with it for the long term.
A classroom arrangement, the physical setting, should foster this as well as accessibility. Grouping students through out the room (in the best case scenario with computers at each station) such that they can easily communicate with one another while at the same time working in conjuction with what the teacher presents would make this possible. We talked a little about copyrighted materials as learning tools. So long as they are used within the classroom, in limited amounts, and not in any way that will inhibit the authors' generation of income from the use or copying of for educational purposes is, in my eye, a valuable tool. The broader the scope of learning the better, especially with reinforcing materials such as articles or exerpts that are related to the classroom topic.

First Day of Class

Last night I had my first 'Effective Use of Technology' class for the spring '10 semester. Right now I still feel a little disoriented and the goals of the class rather hazy but hope after one or two more classes, once we get into the swing of things, these feelings will work themselves out.

We discussed whether or not education in America needs to be reformed. Do I think it does? My mind was racing in a million offshoot topics as we discussed this topic and suffice to say after all that I really am not sure where I stand. My sister has been teaching in Philadelphia for about 8 years now and through her eyes I've seen how corrupt and ill run the public school system is. No doubt the troubled Philly schools aren't the only ones in the country/world that need to be fixed but at the same time I feel that, to solve the problems of one school we cannot use a 'fix all' solution because certain problems (while some often universal) are very specific.

Times are changing and I as much as it scares me to see how fast the world is moving forward education will need to adapt to these changes. In particular, those relating to technology.It isn't necessarily good though why we need to compete with other countries. America used to be a leader in industry and if that hadn't been sold out from under a nation that willingly allowed it to be pushed away with two hands to nations that were grateful to take it... we wouldn't be struggling to make these quick adjustments.

Despite how great my opposition, how much resistance there is to my point of view on the matter, I will continue to feel as I do now- me being up against a whole society who has come to believe the opposite of what I believe is best. My stance on technology and preparing to gear our whole American society toward a technologically proficient yet industrial insufficent nation is this:
It can be a great convenience. Lord knows in writing my story it makes things go much faster when I'm editing on a computer versus by hand on paper, but why on earth do four year olds need to be using Ipods and computers as opposed to reading or building things?
Who is going to mind the farm and deliver our goods to the stores when everyone has been ushered off into offices with college degrees? Children still need to be outside using their imaginations and playing until they get of age where they begin to outgrow this, which is when I first started using technology. Am I any less productive or skilled? In areas where I am not it isn't because I couldn't be, I chose not to be because I fear what will happen to a world totally overrun by computers. Will people know how to live/survive if something tremendous should happen and we'd be without it all?

Illiteracy and such are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of America educational plagues. Is it entirely on account of schools not doing their jobs? They are doing the same if not better than what they were 50 years ago when most kids went on the graduate from highschool knowing how to read and write. Many problems are social, it's just easier to blame the educational system it seems, when needed. Theere are teachers in inner city schools who are there to teach, standing in empty classrooms. Where are the students? They don't want to learn, because it isn't cool to take education seriously in our culture anymore. Watch tv or movies or geared towards a certain age group anyday and see who the smart kids are. The nerdy kids, the ones who are bullied and ugly and sit alone in the lunch room with glasses on and braces. The epitome of uncool is being smart. How is this the schools' fault that kids don't care? Perhaps there are severe deficits in our social structure as well.