Introducing Yourself Becomes Easier

Glogster, a new tool that I have been using this year among many others in my classes.  I have been using this in my Production and Utilization of Instructional Technology, for two projects my professor has assigned us.  I am also presenting this next week in class, and I am excited to show my classmates who have never experienced this before how beneficial it can be to a classroom.  I think this is a great way to have students introduce themselves instead of standing in a group of people turning pale in front of there eyes and being nervous.  Most of the time people can tell you are nervous which makes it much more difficult because public speaking is one of the greatest fears among people, so finding any way to make it easier, such as Glogster makes it easier for students to tell the class a little about themselves without that fear.  Glogster is a website were you can add videos, sounds, graphics and pictures to tell your story.  It also gives you templates to choose from that fit any personality.  Not only are you including technology into the classroom, it gives the students a chance to open up and try something new.  I think it is something middle and high school level teachers should think about when wanting to come up with new and clever ways to get to know the students, it not only gives the students a chance to gain new knowledge, it eases the nerves for the first day of school, which pretty much all of us can remember that feeling.  It also can be tool for future projects they do in there middle school, high school, and college career.  I know where I went to high school I was rarely introduced to new technology and I wish one of my teachers would of introduced these tools to the classroom.  To be honest, most of the things we talk about in class I have never heard of because I was not fortunate enough to be introduced to these tools in high school.  I am so glad we are learning about all these new tools, technology and multimodality, it has opened me up to so many new ideas that I would have never thought about using, and I cannot wait to use them in my classroom.  To be able to open up new opportunites for my students that I never got the chance to experience until I got to college will be so rewarding. 

Practice Makes Perfect

When reading over The Nuts and Bolts of Creating and Using Blogs, Wikis, and Digital Stories in Your Classroom, I was very pleased in to how in depth each section went.  They explained how to set them up and then how to incorporate into a classroom setting.  I just wish the section on blogs was something I had read before we created one for class because I honestly had no idea how to use one and this would of been tremendous help.  Something that I did like about the blogs section was that Wilber gave you three different ways in which to set up a blog for your classroom, which was very useful to see the different aspects.  One blog that caught my eye was the ability to create a collaborative class blog, so that both the teacher and student can make original posts to the blog, which I think is very important because it takes both student and teacher to make a classroom work, especially when introducing something new, it lets the students know that you are willing to put in the time to learn just as much as they are.  Something that I think in a classroom would work well is "repsonding to reading a novel or short story," not only are you being introduced into new technology but are able to incorporate classroom terms and skills as well, so you are learning literacy in two ways (Wilber 68).  I love the idea that authors can look up blogs to see the comments that students have made, like Sue Monk Kidd did with the students who blogged about her book The Secret Life of Bees, she took the time out to answer questions that the students posted, just like the students took the time out to write comments about her book, which she was delighted about.  Not only does blogging about a book give the students the ability to connect with the author, it gives them the opportunity to "publish their ideas and make them available to the world at large, including the authors of the books they read"(Wilber 69).  By putting the blogs out there for everyone to see, it gives the students the feeling of importance, that there is someone out there that cares about what they have to say, which in the end will make them confident about there work.  I really enjoyed reading this, I mainly focused on blogs because it is something still new to me that I want to learn more about.  Not that I am not interested in wikis or digital stories, I want to perfect blogging before I take the next step into the others. 

Prezi or PowerPoint? Up to You to Choose

 The topic I am going to focus on today comes from something I just learned in my Production and Utilization of Instructional Technology course.  We just got done recently making a digital safety poster for students of the middle grade level.  The objective of this was to add technology into this lesson by using PowerPoint.  The purpose of this project was to make a poster promoting safety for a subject that we chose.  On the PowerPoint it needed to contain a catchy title, a graphic, three important facts to promote safety, and it had to be readable and show some creativity.  By doing this poster it shows that technology can be incorporated into any project or lesson, but remembering that content and pedagogy always come first, technology should be the last thing added into a lesson.  I chose to discuss this because in our last classroom discussion we all talked about the difference of PowerPoint and Prezi and which one we thought was better, and it was fifty-fifty.  I only know of PowerPoint, I have never heard of Prezi but I am excited to learn about it and how it helpful and applies to the classroom.  I know PowerPoint can be helpful to a classroom from my experience in using it in many times throughout my school career, and I am sure Prezi provides the same yet different qualities that it can bring to the classroom.  It mainly comes down to personal opinion and which one fits your style of teaching better, or simply just one you like better or are more comfortable with using.  I am anxious to see how this works, hopefully it is something else I can add on my list to take with me when I become a teacher.

               

VS.            

                                     

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Prezi_logo.jpg
http://denverlibrary.org/content/presenting-panache

Creativity is Key

Before reading this article I knew what podcasting was, but what I did not know was that it could be used/incorporated in such a way in a classroom.  It gives students the ability to express there creativity while still including things they learned from writing traditional book reports, such as, "attention to mood, form, selection of key quotes, perspective, and audience" (Rozema 32).  Being able to express yourself, is what will make more students confident in there work and be proud to show there work off to there classmates.  Opening them up to things other than a paper and pencil, it will INSPIRE them to use things that may be different and non-traditional, that could be used in other classrooms or when they move onto higher education.  Everything we have learned in this class so far really excites me, showing that there is more than one way to learn something, and not to be afraid to express yourself, your creativity, not to be afraid to step outside of the box.  I cannot wait to be able to include these elements into my classroom, the use of multimodality is still new to me but as I progress I am sure it will become second nature.  Podcasting is something I will consider when I have my own classroom, it is something that no one would expect to come out of a high school classroom, which is why I would want to do it.  To open up students to a whole new world and experiences, by just using multimodality.  Even though it will take me a while to get the gist of it, I will just have to learn and practice just like all of us have to do in some point in our lives, to learn anything. 

Something I really enjoyed from this article is when Rozema said he publishes the best students work or "podcasts to iTunes, "which he puts out for the world to see.  That the students are able to see there work being showcased, showing them that creativity and trying new things isn't so bad after all.  That he is willling to take time out of his day to do better for his students, to show them hard work and focus really does pay off.  You never know that something like podcasting could lead to a future career or will be included somewhere throughout your life.  As a teacher I will try my hardest to make the classroom memorable and be able to see my students become successful and knowing that I was part of what got them there. 

"Listening to digital audio content won’t replace reading, listening to live presentations, or the multitude of other ways learners take in information, but it can augment those methods."-Eva Kaplan-Leiserson is associate editor of Learning Circuits 

http://hear2cast.blogspot.com/2006/04/more-podcast-quotes.html

Who Would of Thought???

Very hesitant to connect with the world again, I caved in and recently joined Twitter.  I have only had it for a few days and I am still trying to get the hang of it, so hopefully I will master it soon.  While on this social media website a couple things came to mind on how I could incorporate this into my classroom one day.  I was thinking that all the students could make a twitter account and follow eachother for things that are happening in the classroom, to get them familiar with multimodality, and the use of a new technology, even though I think most will already have one.  Each week have the students post one quotation or excerpt from the book we are reading at that time, and explain why they chose it.  I know Twitter only gives you a certain amount of words you can tweet with, so it would have to be two separate tweets, one there quotation or excerpt and one explaining why.  This will hopefully get the students to interact with one another and also be able to connect the two literacies together, which will show them that today literacy is not only interpreted in text but through technology as well.  So maybe one day when I am finally able to teach, I hope that I am able to bring the term multimodality into the classroom, especially since the world is changing and becoming engulfed with new ideas and technologies. 

http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/50-twitter-comic-strips/

It Seems Like Learning Is Not Going to Be Easy

Switching gears for this blog, I focused more on Miller and McVee.  Wanted everyone to get my point of view out of each book we have to read.  I am not going to lie, reading the beginning of chapter 2 kind of made me scared, not to teach but to integrate multimodal tools in the classroom.  I am willing to learn how to use them, I am just afraid I learn, the first day I step into my classroom I will somewho become nervous and forget.  After getting deeper into the chapter, I realized learning is a process we all have to do throughout our lives or we will never be able to move on, whether it be the teacher or the students.  It is sad to say that, "students in 21st-century classrooms don't know a worl without the affordances of these digital technologies, " which is so true, which is why as teachers or students, you have to be willing to learn even if you make a mistake (Miller, McVee 13).  Learning anything new, in this case technology takes a group effort, and input and support from your students and yourself, makes the transition a little more calming, and takes you from stressed to at ease, which is where I will be my first day, I just know it, I will be the teacher who rips her hair out the first day, I am exaggerating a little too much.  I am the type of person who wants everything to be right, so for me that is going to be the most difficult; to have to accept the fact that I will make a mistake and I will just have to learn from it.  Gee states that "Learning," "should be both frustrating and life enhancing, "this quotation I think is the most important one throughout the whole chapter, the one that future teachers should carry along with them, throughout the teaching process.  It shows that no matter if you are the teacher or student, there is always room for learning, and you should not be afraid to take the next step and hesitate to do so because in the end you will show not only yourself but your students, that this is your PASSION, and you are willing to do whatever it takes to engage them and make them become better students, even if it means learning something that might take you by surprise.

I do apologize, sometimes I write so much I forget that it only has to be a paragraph long.  Teaching is something I am passionate about, it is something I could talk about forever.  I cannot wait until the day when I am able to help students achieve there goals in life, and open them up to new things such as multimodality.

Yayyy Literacy!!!

Talking about literacy in our first class, really got me thinking of what literacy honestly means, so I took it upon myself to use the dictionary (in case you wanted to look for yourselves) to find the proper term for what literacy means.  There is nothing in the term that says anything about multimodal tools, i just simply says that literacy is the quality of being literate; especially to read and write.  Even though the definition says the quality of being literate, it does not go into detail about the different ways in which an individual can be literate.  Although, this may be true and what we have all pretty must been taught since we were in school, now a days literacy has a whole new meaning.  To be literate just does not mean to be able to read and write, and do not get me wrong those are extremely IMPORTANT; in my opinion it is the ability to use media, voice, sounds, signs, etc. also known as multimodality (which I know is Professor Oldakowski's favorite term) and be able to include them in such places as the classroom.  Honestly, before this class I just thought being literate meant being able to read and write, such as the definition says.  I never in a million years thought it would include the use of multimodality  and the integration we are seeing in classrooms these days.  Literacy is of great importance when becoming a teacher and being able to learn and accept the new ways to be literate in todays world.   

“Who made you Queen of Literacy? Go sit in your car!”- Jackson Pearce

Through the Eyes of a Student

I am really enjoying reading Adolescents and Digital Literacies by Sara Kajder, it keeps me interested, and every chapter focuses on a different form of literacy.  I have never read a text such as this one before this class.  I like in the beginning how Kajder describes a scene about a student, she introduces the student, but also has a way of making the reader feel like they are along with that student.  In Chapter 2, although many things caught my attention, I want to mainly focus on a quotation that I thought was interesting when I came across it.  "The deal here isn't that I used a technology.  It is that I used a technology to be smarter in school," and this quotation really caught my attention; it not only shows a different literacy than text, it shows that not all technology is social and that it can be used for educational and learning purposes as well (Kajder 16).  As an aspiring teacher, this is something that I will think about when students are using different technologies in the classroom, and not to assume that they are using it in inappropriate ways.  The section where the quotation came out of is where I was most engaged because it came from the students point-of-view, and the two other stories in the chapter, and really made me think of what kind of student I was in high school, and if I incorporated enough multimodal tools in my school work,  even though my high school did not offer to many opportunities to do so.  Hopefully, when I become I teacher I will be able to take into consideration that the students have important things to say and opinions, have there own voice about including different technologies into the classroom, and to make them more accessible for all students because it is important these days to introduce multimodal tools into the classroom, at least in my opinion. 

Just an end quotation that I thought summed up the whole chapter, shown on the very first page.  "Digital youth can "always on," in constant contact with friends via texting, instant messaging, mobile phones, and Internet connections...."(Kajder 13). 

Hello Everyone =)

My name is Casey.  I am from Pittsburgh, I am a true city girl, and yes I am a Steelers fan.  I am a sophomore at Slippery Rock University and I am studying Secondary Education English.  The grade I want to especially teach are high school seniors, don't ask why I would put myself through that, it is just something I have always wanted to do.  A few interests and things about myself:

• Skiing
• Baking
• Watching movies, I am an avid movie-goer.
• Hanging out with friends and family, I have the most amazing family and friends and I do not know what I would do without them.
• Writing, when I have time.
• I am horrible at math, hence why I am becoming and English teacher.
• I love animals, especially dogs.
• If I could I would live near the beach, the beach can somehow relax me.
• If you know me I am very impatient.
• Without stress, I wouldn't have any energy at all. 
• One day I will learn how to relax and TAKE ONE DAY AT A TIME. 
• I was told that I was very personable and easy going/laid back. 
• I am not afraid to try anything once, including food.
• I would love to go white water rafting, swim with the dolphins, and go horseback riding.
• I am deathly afraid of airplanes, but a place I would love to go is Australia, I will get there somehow.  
• DON'T BE AFRAID TO TAKE CHANCES, AND DO SOMETHING THAT YOU MAY HAVE THOUGHT TO YOURSELF YOU WOULD NEVER DO, YOU NEVER KNOW YOU MAY LEARN A LOT ABOUT YOURSELF!!!

I really hope you enjoy my blogs, enough to hold your interest. 

"Keep smiling because life is a beautiful thing and there is so much to smile about" Marilyn Monroe