Where Have I Been

WOW, it seems like I have been away for an entire semester. I feel like a real slacker. It won't be long for the stress to get crankin up as the semester is winding down. I am supposed to be blogging about video and have no idea what to write about as I missed class last week. I know the importance of story boarding and scripting, so I am sure they play a significant part of what we did during class last week. I am in a fantastic group and sure they will bring me up to speed quickly. I am glad this is the final semester, because if it was the first semester, I do not see myself completing the course. I am beyond overwhelmed.

Podcasts

Podcasts, what a fantastic use of classroom and student time. What an incredible way to get students deeply involved into the curriculum, participate in assessment, and organize an authentic solution to an authentic problem. With the need for factual information, the design of a script, the organization of ones message, and the actual finished podcast, students have wonderful opportunities to express what they know in a non traditional assessment that is entertaining to themselves, classmates and all that take part. The need to assist young children in putting a podcast together can, and more than likely will, be seen as excessive work, time consuming, and non constructive for the purpose of assessing students understanding of curriculum. In this time of meeting national and state standards, podcasts can be seen as over the top non educational activities that benefit none and have little effect on learning. Personally I do not see it that way and hopefully administration will quit wrapping their heads around numbers that have little to do with what children have learned and their ability productively put their learning to use. The creation of a podcast is certainly an authentic activity that takes what students have learned and use that knowlege and information to inform others in a creative and authentic way. Here here to podcasts.

Wiki is all knowing

Wiki's, pretty cool. Although most people I talk to have few good things to say about them in terms of their reliability and accuracy, I have learned that they seem to be pretty spot on, accurate, and reliable. Last week I added to my first wiki concerning crickets. It felt pretty cool adding to the web. I think kids will feel the same way. I look forward to using wiki's in my science and social studies classes. I am a little unsure of how to get them going and where to begin, but looking forward to getting it going. Although quite limited, my experience with wiki's have been very positive and beneficial. Regardless of what you look up on the net, it seems there is a related wiki to assist in gaining information. It is fascinating that there seems to be some information on about anything out there. Fascinating.

Blogs, who are they for?

Reading about blogging and thinking about blogging has made me wonder who is really using blogs. Until I began this ITs program I had little knowlege about blogging and I am sure many other people not involved in professional occupations are as ignorant as I was, and to some degree still am. As popular as blogging has become, it seems to target a specific population of the net. As a result of blogging being new to me, I would not know where to begin to expose myself to other blogs on the net. I think those individuals involved in certain occupations, activities, political groups, etc. blog a great deal as they are common practice for that population. I have friends in law enforcement, sales, and the manual labor arena that have certainly heard of blogs, but find no relevance to them. It makes me wonder what can be done to make blogging more popular to the entire net population rather than the select groups that find blogging valuable and entertaining. Could exposure to blogging in our schools open those doors to broaden the use of blogs in today's cyber space?

Todd as a Leader

Well, here we are, final semester, 14 weeks left. I am in awe. So much t0 wrap my head around. I wasn't designed to think this hard. That is why I teach 2nd grade. My brother says they won't let me teach anything beyond 2nd grade as I am not smart enough. Hopefully I will graduate this May and show him.

Anyway, thinking about leadership this semester, after a brief email conversation with my mentor, got me a little depressed. After responding to questions about me as a leader and being a risk taker kind of got me to thinking. Since No Child Left Behind and the whole AYP thing, I have found myself being less and less of a creative teacher and overall leader in my school. Many of the cool units I created and implemented in past years have fallen to the side as they don't directly correlate to 2nd grade SOL's. In the whole scope of the units, all of the SOL's were met, but not directly each day. Volunteering for extra curricular activities dwindled away to nothing and my visibility at evening school functions has all but disappeared. Scratching my head and watching my final few hairs fall to the ground, I couldn't help but wonder why my involvement has diminished. What I came up with was the amount of time spent coaching as well as the huge amount of time spent working on my Masters Program has greatly impacted my time spent participating in school activities. I also feel No Child Left Behind has negatively impacted what has made me the teacher I am (or was a few years ago). Creative and motivational activities are no longer designed as they do not seem to fit into the facts driven demands of passing the SOL's. It makes me wonder if we are actually making things worse for our students in our attempt at getting them to PASS THE TEST. What have our students really LEARNED. All will be seen I guess.

Alright I am getting off track a bit. Anyway I am hoping that my efforts to increase my activity in my school will greatly improve as my Masters Program comes to a close and my time can be spent in a variety of school activities and programs.

Money project

Well I just looked over my blogs and realized I am one short, YIKES. Well I guess there is a reason for everything. We have been ending our money unit for the past week and the students have to complete their final money project by Friday. Students were given the following amounts of money: $20.00 bill, $10.00 bill, 2 $5.oo bills, and 5 $1.00 bills, 12 quarters, 12 dimes, 12 nickels, and 12 pennies (copies). The coins were only to be used for showing the change they received back, not for their totals prior to going shopping. They were given a list of products from a ficticous grocery store with their prices. Students were required to organize three meals and pay for each seperately. Displays of the products they purchased, their prices and totals for each meal were required to be on the final poster. They had to design a large poster showing the products they purchased, the cash they gave the cashier, and the change they got back. They had to do this for each meal. They had to show their wallet at the start of the project and their wallet at the end of the project. They had to design the poster in a way that would show what was done for each meal and how their money was spent. Last years projects were fantastic and I am looking forward to seeing this years. Kids can be very creative when given the chance.

Ironic

This has nothing to do with designing, but found it ironic. This morning I had a conference with a parent over the likely retention of his son. Although I think his parenting skills are a contributing factor to his son's lack of academic success, he blamed his child's decreasing grades on his excess time spent playing video games and watching tv. Hearing this made me chuckle, but also begs me to ask him why he allows his student to involve himself in these activities if he feels they are detrimental to his son's education. I told him that games can be valuable to his education if played for the right reasons and if monitored by adults. We went into a big discussion about problem solving, sharp critical thinking, personal involvement and communication with the game and its charcters........ Anyway I think by the end of the conference the father began to realize that his son's classroom efforts and his own reluctance to keep up with his child's education daily were two main factors in his child's failing marks. Before taking this cohort, I honestly do not know how I would have responded to that fathers statements about videogames and his son's failing grades. I am sure I would have agreed to much of what he said.

Just thought it was kind of appropriate to bring this up.