Technology Modules

One class that all W&M education students are required to complete is a course in technology integration in the classroom. Obviously, this is right up my alley. Even more exciting is the fact that my GA adviser is the teacher! Mark always has great ideas in and out of class for technological integration. His rule of thumb is that yes, technology can do a lot for you, but what should you be using technology for? What is the relative advantage of a specific type of technology in your classroom ... meaning, what does it add to the classroom that you would not be able to do otherwise?

This week we are each meeting with Mark to discuss individual technology lesson plans. I'm still trying to decide what I'm going to do for mine. We have done some class exploration to learn about different types of technology and how they work in the classroom. Here are some class project examples from that exploration (the elementary people did these technology modules as well). I could easily come up with a lesson plan for the technology module I created (podcasting) but I think that I want to explore something different. I am considering blogging, Inspiration, PhotoStory, and Web Inquiry. Ideas?

Also, here is a sample of a movie that one of my colleagues (Eric) created during one of our classes to answer the age-old debate: Pirates vs. Ninjas.

Autumn

Things I love about fall:

1. Fall colors ... they just started coming out in Williamsburg this week! The trees around William and Mary are beautiful. Growing up in California for such a prolonged period of time really made me appreciate having all the seasonal changes. I've been watching for good fall colors for a couple weeks now, and I'm so glad that they've come out in full force.
2. Football ... I've watched almost every VT game this year and most of the UVA games, as well as some of the other games, too. I've enjoyed watching football for several years now, but this is the first year I've really invested time in watching it regularly. It's a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon (while lesson planning, of course!)
3. Fall food ... pie, turkey, cornbread, chili, soup, mashed potatoes, stuffing, all of it. I can't wait for Thanksgiving.
4. Cooler weather ... the days have started getting especially cooler this week, and I'm so excited to be able to wear sweaters again, and use my brand new red peacoat from my parents for my birthday.
5. My birthday! and my sister's ... she just turned 21, heavens ... that makes me feel old!
   

School days

Going to the high school is the best part of my week. No joke. This is probably why I haven't written as much here as I should have -- I've been having so much fun lesson planning and preparing for my time at school. The best part of the experience so far has been getting to know my students. I am currently completing observations in an AP Government classroom and an AP Microeconomics classroom. Initially, I was only interacting with students in Econ because the class does a fair amount of small group work, but I've been able to interact with the AP Government students recently during our political parties unit.

Some of the highlights so far:

1. The kids look up to me a ridiculous amount for not having known me for very long. A couple of the girls have asked me for advice about things. I think this is partially because I'm a young, female teacher and they probably don't know many women in their mid-20s. Regardless of the reason, it's cool.
2. Assisting the students with their political parties project ... they split into groups and created their own political parties and platforms. I helped them make short campaign videos! Go using journalism skills.
3. Direct quote from said political parties project: "Hey, Ms. N---- said it would work, and she's a grad student! We should put it in our platform!"
4. Chaperoning at the Homecoming Dance ... lots of "Hey, Ms. N-----!" and "Why didn't you bring a date?" haha ...
5. Getting to know lots of teachers ... I've also observed in another AP Government class, a 9th grade regular English class, and a 10th grade World Geography class
6. Finding my "teacher voice" and my "teacher demeanor" ... a year ago, there's no way I would have been able to lead a lesson for 90 minutes. Amazing.
7. Lesson planning is actually fun ... which is good since that is all I do. 80% of teaching is planning, I have decided
8. Seeing high school from the other end of the spectrum. I mean, I was never the kid who hated high school, but there were definitely parts of it that I didn't like. This puts an entirely new spin on the whole affair.
9. Seeing how each high school is unique.
10. Meeting dozens of innovative teachers who teach beyond the standards and find ways to make content engaging while getting across the main points.

Don't get me wrong, it's plenty challenging. It's hard waking up at 5am, and there are some days where I don't exactly feel like I'm making a real difference ... but then there are other days that are fantastic. That's part of the job. Luckily, the best part of it all is the kids. I'm so looking forward to getting to know them better.

Things I am hoping to continue cultivating in myself

1. Ability to ask engaging, higher-level questions
2. Relating to all of my students
3. Finding ways to introduce technology in a seamless way
4. Designing real-life lessons that relate to things my students are interested in
   
5. Doing all of it without losing my sanity! :)
   

Wordle

I know I haven't written in a while! I will again soon. But first, I wanted to bring your attention to a cool Web site that my graduate assistantship (GA) adviser, Mark, showed me yesterday: www.wordle.net. The site allows you to paste text in a box and it randomizes it for you in a word cloud to show you the most used words. You can also put a link in to any Web site with an RSS feed (like a blog) and see the most used words there, too. Of course, I couldn't resist. Here are the word clouds for each of my three blogs:

Wonder of Now (this blog):




London Holiday (study abroad experience in London):




For His Renown (attempted blog when I went to the Urbana and Passion conferences in 2006):


Go check it out! And, if you want to see any of these clouds in detail, just click on the picture. You'll be able to read all of the words.

Mark and I were thinking that this could be a cool way to analyze primary source documents in the classroom. He ran the Obama and McCain convention speeches through Wordle and it was really neat to see visually what words they both focus on. Any thoughts on that?