Presentation Reflection: Looking in the Mirror Isn't Always Fun

I recorded myself giving a powerpoint presentation of my Crow Creek Road Conserver project, without really practicing the delivery part. I knew the content of the presentation, but hadn't practiced presenting it before recording it so, I knew I was going to see myself in my rawest, unrefined form. This is good though, "I will see ALL of my vices as a presenter", I thought. I surely did. But before I go into the "Janice Bashing"

I would like to highlight my strengths.
--I have great voice projection and an ability to keep talking while I am thinking and keep the momentum going.
--I spoke in a controlled pace and not too fast most of the time.
--I emphasize my words with higher tone and pauses as I change topics.
--I am relaxed and comfortable speaking and used gestures well.

I have much to work on and the video has made me aware of some of those things.
--I noticed I did "umm" a lot. I could have reduced some of that by practicing.
--I played with my hands a too much and swayed back and forth where I was standing.
--As I got into the data of my research project I should have used more of the '4B's' to emphasize my main points.
--I put too much of my data on a couple slides and should have given more results, it got a little wordy.
--I would have liked to have had a remote to change slides with.
--The pace of speech was a little fast and I could have emphasized points better.

I am going to video tape myself more next semester.

Here is a link to the video of my stand & deliver powerpoint presentation.

My Educational Philosophy: Be True!

-Sustainability
-Relevance
-Diversity
-Variety
-Quality

A link to a copy of my written Educational philosophy at Google Docs.

Check out a video I made of My Educational Philosophy.

Article Assessment of "Tools for the Mind" by Mary Burns

"Tools for the Mind" by Mary Burns explores some of the ways schools are using and not using technology. She believes that schools and teachers are not utilizing technology to the greatest of it's potential. She presents the question "Why are schools using computers primarily to teach low-level skills when technology has the potential to deepen student learning?".

Some points raised in the article:

--When technology was first introduced into the educational setting it was accompanied by hope and promise of the possibilities and potential to improving student learning.

--It was believed that technology would help build higher-order thinking skills.

--Budget cuts (proposed and actual), NCLB mandates, lack of supporting research for technology improving learning and as a tool for higher-order thinking and has lead to a decline in optimism and utilization of technology in the classroom.

--The majority of technology use in the classroom today is to teach lower-level skill in the form of word processing and 'show and tell' programs like powerpoint.

--Power points have reduced content to "sight bites" that don't promote quality and thorough research and presentation of knowledge.

--"Students and teachers must become creators of information and ideas, not simply users of technology of the higher-order thinking is to be achieved with the use of technology."

--teachers should teach critical thinking skills first and technology later.

--Teachers should focus on curriculum, instruction and assessment

--teachers should be provided with trainings on how to use technology in the classroom to promote higher order thinking not just trainings on simply how to use the technology.

As an aspiring teacher I would like to learn ways to promote higher order thinking with the use of technology. I would think that publishing works on the web or in the schools would be a way to do this. I think that in order for us to get our students to use higher order thinking with technology we need to use it more ourselves. I am still not convinced that technology can be a tool for higher order thinking.

Energy Conservation Project

I set up a small test project with the dirt road I live on and explored how much fuel and money would be saved if I found alternatives to driving the 5 miles to and from my house. i then played with the numbers and explored how much fuel would be saved if 10, 100, 1000 and a million people found alternatives to driving 5 and 10 miles through out the year.
Check my Excel Spreadsheet where I calculated my findings.
I also have a written report of my energy project.
Check out my power point of the project The Crow Creek Road Conserver.

Assessment of: The Educator's Guide to the Read/Write Web by Will Richardson

Janice Crawford
iamjlc@gmail.com
10/16/2007

The article, The Educator’s Guide to the Read/Write Web by Will Richardson, highlights, explains and explores the possibilities that some tools of technology present for students, teachers and the global community. Some of these tools are found on what is known as the Read/Write Web. Tools of the Read/Write Web discussed in the article are blogs, wikis, feeds, social bookmarks and podcasts. The author goes on to explain workings of the tools of the Read/Write Web. The author also explores some of the implications, possibilities and opportunities the tools of the Read/Write Web presents.



• Weblogs, wikis, podcasts, and similar tools introduced over the last fews years have ushered in the “Read/Write Web”.

• The Read/Write Web is changing the face of classrooms as thousands of teachers and studentsvbuse the web to publish their work, collaborate on projects, and engage in online conversations.

• One key tool is Weblogs or logs. Which enable anyone to create personal or group Web site without needing to learn hypertext markup language. Tens of millions of bloggers around the world, many of them high school students, regularly add their ideas and perspectives to the massive body of information that is the web.

• Teachers are using blogs to build classroom resource portals and to foster online learning communities. Students create online, reflective, interactive portfolios of their online work to share with worldwide audiences.

• A wiki is a Web site that anyone can edit at any time. The most visible example of the potential of wikis is Wikipedia.org. Each entry is continually shaped by anonymous contributors who log on to the encyclopedia and add new or clarifying information as the need arises.

• Another new digital tool is Really Simple Syndication (RSS) which enables people to subscribe to various feeds of information-data that are continually streamed and collected into a file with the help of a tool called an aggregator.

• RSS aggregators check this information stream as regularly as every hour to see if there is anything new for RSS subscribers to read when they are ready; if there is the aggregator copies and stores it.

• Hundreds of traditional media outlets like The New York Times, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal now offer RSS feeds for their content.

• A student doing a project on global warming, for example, can create RSS feeds that will bring him or her the latest research on the topic almost as soon as it is published.

• Another way to share information on the Web is podcasting, which can best be described as creating amateur home radio programs widely distributing them on the web.

• Now that anyone with an internet connection can publish and disseminate content with no editorial review process, consumers of Web content need to be editors as well as readers. We need to teach students how to actively question and evaluate published information instead of passively accepting it as legitimate.

• The old read-only Web was itself a transformative technology that changed the way our students work, learn and communicate. The new Read/Write Web will change their lives even more.



As an educator, we need to consider whether our curriculums should change now that students have the ability to reach audiences far beyond our classroom walls. This also may motivate students to become better editors and more thoughtful producers of works that they may in the past have handed in to the teacher alone, but now may be visible by a global audience. We must teach students how to actively question and evaluate published information instead of passively accepting it as legitimate. The teacher’s role may also shift from a content expert to a guide who shows students how to find and evaluate online resources, communicate with experts whom they encounter online, and publish their own creations. Teachers using these tools of the Web to enhance instruction must monitor student use and teach students how to use the tools safely as well as show students how to deal with inappropriate content. The Web creates risks as well as opportunities for the classroom. Schools and educators need to create clear rules and limitations for the utilization of such tools so the educators and students rights are protected.

Energy Conservation Project: Steps 1-4

1.Ask a question:

-How much money/fuel will I save and how many calories will I burn if I ride my
bike/cross country ski up and down my road instead of driving my car?

2.Information out there?

Google search.

3.Data needed to answer question:

-How many miles is it up and down my road?
-How much fuel does it take drive my car up/down my road?
-How many miles to the gallon does my car get?
-How much does a gallon of gas cost?
-How many gallons are in a barrel of oil?
-How much does a barrel of oil cost?
-How many barrels of oil/money will I save if I opt to ride my bike/cross country ski, hitch a ride up/down my road?
-How many calories do I burn per mile riding my bike or cross country skiing?
-How many miles, to nearest .10 mile, is the length of my road?


4.Methodology for collecting data:

-Log miles up/down my road whenever I drive.
-Keeping a log of when I drive and don’t drive.
-Keep a log whenever I bike up and down my road and how far I go.
-Make calculations accordingly of gas, money, calories used and saved.

Anthropological Assessment of my School's Technology Culture

Dimond High School is pretty hooked up when it comes to technology. Much of the information that I was asked to find out about came to me at the beginning of the year when I was getting the lay of the land at Dimond and finding out what resources were available to me. I would say that Dimond is behind the times of technology when it comes to Smart Boards. They have projectors and every teacher seems to have a Lap Top computer that wants one. Most teachers use the computer labs or mobile lap top computer cart in there classes at some point during the year. I don't know of any technology classes offered at Dimond where students use technology to create movies or videos. In the class I am teaching I have a semester project that I have encouraged students to create movies, videos, slide shows, power points or something using technology.

I did come to a road block when I tried to get the program "Comic Life" installed on the lap top computers for use in my classroom. I wanted to have the students create a comic using the program. The tech coordinator was not very knowledgable as to how to do this or if it was even possible to do this. Turns out, I won't know or it won't happen this semester in time for me to use it. BUMMER!!! It was going to be a really cool project. Anyone have any ideas for me? Any other cool comic programs or resources out there?

A Link to the Anthropological Assessment Document of my School's Technology Culture
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhdntmgx_1dk42cm

Assessment: "Listen to the Natives" by Marc Prensky

Janice Crawford
iamjlc@gmail.com
9/15/07

Listen to the Natives
By: Marc Prensky

OVERVIEW:
The article discusses the idea that technologically, schools are stuck in the 20th century and students today are rushed, technologically, into the 21st. The article attempts to explore how schools/teachers can use their students’ technologies productively and to the schools, teachers, and students advantage. When students’ knowledge surpasses that of the school and teacher, there is a catch up game happening while trying to figure out how and whether or not to use the new technologies in the educational setting. The article presents ideas as to how

MAIN POINTS:

➢ The term digital native refers to today’s students. They are the native speakers of technology, fluent in the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet.
➢ Students as digital natives will continue to evolve and change so rapidly that teachers/schools will not be able to keep up. Traditional in-services and trainings will no longer be sufficient to train educators.
➢ Schools should be teaching kids how to program, filter knowledge, and maximize the features and connectivity of their (electronic) tools.
➢ Teachers need to start putting engagement before content.
➢ Digital tools are like extensions of students’ brains
➢ According to the article, students want more technology in schools
➢ Schools need to find ways to integrate kids’ technology rich after-school lives with their lives in school.
➢ If parents and teachers don’t stop and listen to the kids they serve, value their opinions and make major changes (in regard to technology in schools) on the basis of the valid suggestions they offer, we will be left with school buildings to administer, but with students who are physically and mentally somewhere else.
➢ Two things need to happen in the classroom today: more one-to-one personalized instruction and self-selected learning groups by the students. Virtual groups are one way to broaden the possibility for a student to find a compatible learning partner.

REFLECTION
As an educator, I haven’t heard a lot of this before and I don’t think most schools are aligned with the thinking in this article. This article makes me wearisome of the implications.

I disagree with the following quote for the article, “Today’s students have mastered a large variety of tools that we will never master with the same level of skill. From computers to MP3 players to camera phones, these tools are like extensions of their brains. Educating or evaluating students without these tools makes no more sense than educating or evaluating a plumber without his or her wrench.” I think this is absurd.
Students aren’t computer programs they are human beings. Students are independent of the technologies they use and one can most certainly evaluate a students learning dependent of those technologies.

If this article is true then where are those trainings and new world in-services that they say we need as educators in order to teach and evaluate our students?

I do agree that teachers need to put engagement before content. Make the classroom and activities interesting!

Futuring Reflection

School Train/Fox Becomes a Better Person
The School Train video was interesting and inventive. I think the use of technology in the classroom is important and presents exciting opportunities for learning. I am interested in discovering ways to incorporate technology into my classroom in new and inventive ways. The school train video seemed to be a big project for the topic. I wonder how much time was spent on the video and if the students were learning anything else while the video was being made. I also wonder how much the students actually contributed to the editing and production of the final product. I also wonder how much the students learned form the making of the video. Their voices are on the video and pictures of them, but I don’t know how much they contributed to the final product. I am not able to tell from the video if the students learned what a metaphor is. I know they recognized ways in which school is like riding a train and that metaphor, but I don’t know if they know what a metaphor is outside of that context. The video does not show understanding on the student’s part. I think it is a fun idea and I’m sure the students did gain some understanding from watching the video after it was made as to what a metaphor is. I liked the use of Spanish and English translations. I would have to ask, was the assignment to make a video or was the video something that the teacher made to show what was being taught in her classroom? I would give the video project a C+.
Fox Becomes a Better Person video (well, Fox isn’t a person to begin with, so Fox Becomes a Better Fox is the correct translation, but I wouldn’t mark off for that). This video, though less technologically ‘savvy’ shows so much understanding and skill development on the student’s part. Hannah memorized the story and spoke quite well. She wandered back and forth a bit, but used gestures and voice projection well. I could tell she understood the story. There was a multicultural element incorporated through the oral tradition use, native language and the native folktale. I liked the use of her drawings behind her. The verbal, visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning techniques were all incorporated. I would like to know what the project assignment was. I would give the project an A.

EPIC 2015
After watching this video I was a little awe struck by the ideas. Part of me felt like saying, well, so what? I can separate myself from that, how will that really effect me? Technology can really only effect me and in turn what I do in the classroom if I let it, for the most part? Is some of the affect out of my control though? I had visions of my classes being broadcast on the web or my school website and parents seeing what occurs in class. No big deal, I guess, but I don’t like the idea of that. I think because I don’t know much about podcasting and who does podcast and how and why, I am unaware of all the affect it could have. I do see all this technology as a way to bring the world into the classroom, in real time, but I don’t want to get rid of the hard copy print of media and news. If technology breaks down there is no paper trail or hard copy to have a record of events and history. That all seems a little scary. I don’t like the idea of media being suited and shaped for its audience. It already is to some extent and I try my best to find objective news, which is next to impossible, but I try to find as much about the facts as I can and not concern myself with the jargon. I want relevancy in my news but not just to my interests. I could see Googlezon becoming a reality. I want to show the video to a group of high school students and get a reaction. Has anyone done that? I am really curious.