Edu 610 Reflections

I think Carol in our class said it best to me when she stated it is amazing how you can find out just how far you can push yourself. This class was so great. A wonderfully, challenging experience. I think this course should be mandatory for every college student. I cannot say that every student will always have the same experience, as Ms. Mislevy really knows her stuff. I want Ms. Mislevy to know just how much I realize how much prep work and grading has to go into a class like this. You did an excellent job and Albright is very very lucky to have you. You were made to teach this class and you are very professional on top of your skills.

I will miss class with everyone. It was a great group of students. I hope to cross paths again either at Albright or in the working world. We were all so supportive of one another and patient and gave each other great confidence. I would recommend this course to anyone. Share what you learned with your colleagues, children, friends and anyone who can benefit.

E Portfolio Address

jdesorboeportfolio.weebly.com

Smart Boards

Smartboards have created a virtual learning playground for educators. The technology has and will continue to transform the classroom. The formats that can be used arn't endless but pretty close to it. Students can be granted the stimulus in a multitude of ways to learn more effectively. With the tech generation - it is so important to relate to them in their language. Smartboards allow teachers to do just that.
Once a teacher has mastered the smartboard and/or created lessons, the time spent creating lessons will be time well spent.
I plan on absolutely using smartboards in my lessons. I will not "overuse" the smartboard in an effort to keep the students engaged in it when I do use it. Coupled with a variety of other teaching techniques, students can be intriqued in so many ways.
I am sure that the technology associated with the smartboards will continue to grow and we have yet to see its full potential. The strategies that can be used with them now are impressive enough.
A teacher not familiarizing themselves with the capabilities is doing themselves and their students an injustice.

Video Reflection

Thoughts regarding the group video project that we have been working on in and out of class:

I think the project is a great learning tool. I can absolutely see utilizing video in my classroom. Before I get to the benefits of the learning experience, I want to say what fun it was to video our PSA message. Even though I was sick and had my husband drive me to school so that I wouldn't let Desiree down or fall behind, I did have a great deal of fun. We were re-enacting someone texting (Desiree) while driving and hitting a person on the street (Felicia). People on the streets were interested in what was going on. I think they thought we were up to no good at first.

The filming went smooth once Felicia felt safe that Desiree was not actually going to hit her. Desiree kept braking far short of Felicia to make sure she did not. We had to change our film angle as to not show just how far away car from victim actually was.

I was not in class to work on the story board but Desiree and I went over the thoughts that we were going to put into the film. We will be meeting early for next class to catch up.

From a tool to be used by me in the classroom, while I teach, I think the students would love to film themselves in scientific endeavors and then see themselves on video. We could possibly show the short films over the morning announcements. People like to see themselves on tv.

I will definitly use this venue in my teaching. Labs come to mind immediately. I blogged about some of the ideas in my last blog.

Video - A Powerful Tool

Where to begin with how video could be used in the Science Classroom. One such instance comes to mind last year while conducting an experiment on photosynthesis. The class ran out of time and our color indicator had not yet turned. Had we had a video on the lab set up with a clock in the picture, we could have just let it go and clocked it by re-viewing the video. We ended up missing when the color turned.

Other ideas to use video could be for student presentations. I could make the presentations coupled with proper public speaking. We could use the video to capture important data in field trips and labs.

We could do dissections, have one dissection on video for anyone who missed something or was absent or just could not find a body part on their own.

We could video things and then speed the video to see faster progressions (ex: mold on bread or some other food).

I could video lessons or additional lessons for kids to watch later - again or if they missed class.

Not sure if I could use video for behavior - video the class and if members of the class are misbehaving, use it to show their parents. Could email snipets of the misbehavior home to parents in an email (??) - would have to check this one out with administration but I like it!

Successful with the Net Generation

Through the reading of chapter 8 in Educause, I do not feel it will be that difficult to be successful with the Net Generation. The creators of online sites such as bugscope, webworks and other sites found and bookmarked, to utilize in science class, have done all the work. Yes, it is up to me to get on those sites, use them, manipulate them and incorporate them into the class curriculum but once doing so, the student experience will be well worth it. Many schools are not as up to snuff with their current science labs. To be able to plug into some of these sites, students are exposed to visuals that many other more funded schools are privileged to.

The visuals that are available via the internet allow students to see things that many students in the not so distant past could never hope to see. The exposures are incredible and they need to appreciate this technology.

I really like the segment in the reading discussing the Goals of Education and particularly this:

We must prepare all young people for lives of creativity, citizenship, and social responsibility as well as success in a workplace increasingly shaped by science and technology.

and

There are many approaches to articulating the purposes of a college education. All involve bringing together intellectual engagement and cognitive development with emotional maturity and social responsibility

I do not think I ever gave thought to this and it is articulated well here.

It is our responsibility as educators to make sure our students are kept up to date with current technologies. It is my responsibility to be successful in teaching the net generation by adapting to interactive sites and other computer based forums. It is what they are accustomed to and what they will be utilizing in their professional careers and that being said, I will be successful.

To quote from the text:

"As one faculty member put it, "Technology is a giant mirror reflecting back to you your own deepest issues. It challenges you to clarify what you value, to rediscover why you went into teaching in the first place, and to be honest about whether your original hopes have been realized. ". In the context of technology - I would be doing the students a great diservice by not being able to teach with all the current technology that is out there and sharing how to find such learning skills for their own betterment in my content area or any they are interested in.

Excel Ideas

As a teacher sent to a workshop on excel and being asked to share ideas at a faculty meeting, I came back with the following ideas and suggestions for the use of excel:

1. Placing the grades on an excel spreadsheet enables teachers to structure and organize the data to interpret it in numerous ways. Averages can be taken effortlessly. We did do this in class but you can take it a step further and produce statistics (ie: Boys vs. girls for example if needed) can be sorted out. This method helps teachers to evaluate how well the students do on assessments and tweak lessons or return to lessons accordingly. This data can be shared at faculty, team or departmental meetings. Other teachers with the same subject can show their data and problems can be worked out if one teachers data is askew. (Could be valuable for a department head looking into their teachers performances).

2. Keeping a record in excel of attendance also enables teachers to manipulate data. If a teacher wishes to see if a student who claims he/she wasn't present on a certain day, it would be very easy to sort the data to see if correct.

3. If an assignment is given with multiple due dates of materials throughout the semester, data can be stored and manipulated. You would set up columns of due dates and the assignments and the students names. This way, you could easily see who has not handed in one of the assignments and flag that or let the student know. You could show this spreadsheet as a link on your website to let students access it and see if they have any material missing. You could also post their grades here for the assignment and could import it into the grades spreadsheet when finished.

4. You could actually have a lesson plan that teaches students how to use excel for the management of their own needs. They will surely benefit from it in college and the work world. To keep them up to snuff on these programs that make life easier is very valuable. You would teach them while using content specific data from a lab, for example.

5. You can have the students in science or various other subjects utilize the charts, tables etc for submitting homework, labwork or other assignments. The various charts can manipulate data in many ways. Letting them know that excel does this is a great lesson to be taught.