The Stone Roses in Summer

I've been reading a book on the Stone Roses recently that has further developed my appreciation for the band and their seminal debut album. If ever there was another album that can be played through start to finish without one bit of filler, I am not aware of it. Another top favorite "Slanted & Enchanted certainly has skippers, same for Ride's "Nowhere." What a shame is was that America was not ready for the Roses modernized-retro sound. But then again to be an American fan has always been like being in a secret club with a limited, select membership. Twenty years after its release, and 19 years after I was first introduced to this band and the album is enjoyable to listen today, as it was in the summer of 1990. Timeless, sorta like a Beatles record, only more mature and polished. Enjoy the jpeg of the rare black logo on the cover art from my personal collection.

Final assessment

What were things that were valuable to you from this class? What things do you think you will use in your classroom as a teacher? What things did not have any value to you? Identify and discuss aspects of the class where you feel there could be improvement.

There is so much to take from EDU 422 that is not only valuable to my own classroom, but necessary.  Making movies, as long as the budget allows will be such a fun & exciting way to learn.  Using Inspiration with my 5th graders will absolutely help them with their writing and organizing their ideas.  Using Excel for grades and for keeping track of scores and such, will be totally invaluable to me personally.  We will also be using a newsletter to communicate with students and parents alike.  There is no way my classroom will be complete without Power Point presentations to go along with my critical lectures.  I'm really nor sure what I won't take with me from this class.  It seems to me to all be useful, necessary information that we were presented with.  I know I enjoyed everyday of 422 and always took something great and useful home with me to work on at the end of the week. 

One thing I thought that was pretty neat was the use of blogs instead of handing in writing assignments.  I would like to see my students blogging, assuming they are old enough.  It's going to a fun classroom behind Mr. A's door.  I rally can't wait now that I have all this totally useful information.

I can't really improve on the class, there was too much good stuff to be critical of anything.  I personally had problems keeping track of everything because it was so much work in such a short period of time.  It was confusing at times, but I would not for a second say I ever struggled to get "it".

THANK YOU!

Splicing Video into the Writing Process

I have recently read "Splicing Video into the Writing Process” by Tammy Padina-Scot and Diane Harding for my 422.  It was a incredibly useful and inspiring article on how I as a teacher can incorporate student video projects into the regular curriculum.  The idea is that if you have a topic, such as a history lesson, you can have the students make a short movie on the subject.  The idea is that students can learn a content standard in an untraditional manner.  Students these days are brought up in a technologically advanced society and require a little more interaction in their learning experience than elders like myself may have had.  By researching the material, they learn it.  By separating the students into small groups, you can assign them different subject areas.  By having the students share their movies with the class, the individual learning experiences are shared with other students.  The article pointed out that there are plenty of other lessons that can be taught through the use of movie making, such as science, social studies, and even literature.  I say literature as it would be so easy to do what Hollywood does, turn very good books into movies.  Important scenes, or chapters could be assigned to separate groups and together, the class will have a better understanding of the subject.  This  seems like this could be one of the most useful ways to reach, extra-personal, visual, and hands-on learning styles.  I have no doubt that I will happily be utilizing this viable and recently un-tapped teaching/learning experience in my classroom.

imovie & google sites

This week in 422 we learned how to make a webpage as well as create a short movie using imovie on the mac.  We also discussed last weeks reading on Benjamin Blooms Taxonomy of questions. 

I have never tried to create a website but have always wanted to.  I was surprised at how simple it was, but I was also not able to do all that I wanted.  The demonstration website I saw had cooling background colors that I could not duplicate.  We used google sites to create our web-page.

The website assignment is wonderfully useful because it allows me to create online lessons for my students.  The other side of that is that I can assign my students to create websites if the curriculum will allow for it.  And I am pretty sure I can create a lesson plan to reflect the content standard, I mean- isn’t that part of the reason were taking this awesome class?

The second project we had this week was to film and create an imovie based on a California content standard.  I love earth science in all it’s forms so I came up with the idea for our movie that met 5^th grade standards for earth science.  It was about the rock cycle, the process rocks tend to go through from creation through recreation. 

Making the movie was fun but it was also very exciting to get to use such a fun and useful program as imovie.  In the future, I will be able to assign a movie project for my students.  I could even create my own movie that could be used as a lesson for my students.  The possibilities are very exciting.  It was an incredibly constructive week.

Software Copyrights

We did Three readings this week in 422.  All three revolved around copyright laws and the use of software in the classroom.  The first article I read was titled "And Then There was  Software".  The article is a general run down of what is and isn't legal in regards to software use and copying.  The article also get into the details regarding shareware and freeware.  The greatest differences there are that shareware is not free and even if you download it as a trial, if use is continued then it is stealing not to pay for it.  Again, the general rule of thumb is, if it's not yours (and it probably isn't) get permission before you copy, or post it.

The second article we read this week was the details regarding the first group of people found guilty under the 1997 No Electronic Theft (NET) Act.  The group that perpetrated the alleged crimes called themselves the "Pirates with Attitudes."  I got a kick out of the whole naming of the group because I imagined a bunch of hard-core nerds thinking about themselves in the context of being a bad-ass pirate posse.  Not quite as threatening as they probably hoped.  Anyway, this could have been anyone that stole music from the web, but for a change, and I think for the better- the feds focussed on an organized group of software thieves.

The final reading was by a 6th grade teacher named Nancy.  She wrote an insightful and useful article geared at teaching students of the dangers and legal issues of stealing, copying, and use of stole software.  As children become more adept at using technology, they also are more able to manipulate and steal it.  Since students are generally minors that lack income, many of them would be willing to steal software and games that they would want to utilize.  They should be less willing to steal software if they knew of the serious legal penalties they could be faces with for stealing or pirating software.  She suggests putting the concept in terms the students would be more likely to understand- like how they would feel if a project they posted on the web was stolen by another student and then used without giving credit to the student creator.  Very insightful! 

Causal Mapping

Casual Mapping.

This past week in 422 we learned how to use the outline tool called "Inspiration".  The purpose of this use fool software is to create flow-charts of information for the purpose of writing a paper, sorting ideas, or basically creating an outline.  For an LD student such as myself, I can only say I wish I had access to something so easy to use is would most certainly boasted my GPA had I been using it to write my English papers during my 11 years of college.

Casual Mapping, a concept first introduced to me in the article "Mapping Student Minds" By Ariel Owen, is a similar take on digital outlines.  With casual mapping students make connections from one source of information and how it relates to another.  Like Inspiration outlines, casual mapping uses arrows to connect the ideas and to direct to flow of information.

The article was related to Pine Creek which flows by Santa Cruz.  I went swimming in that river many years ago when I lived up there.  I plan on using casual mapping with my science students when I have my own classroom.  It seems like a great tool for the casual learner as well as star students.  Thank you.

Power Point & Benjamin Bloom in 1956

Power Point is a great tool for classroom lectures because it gives you a chance to reach a larger audience.  Of course  your audience being the classroom, 25-30 students will not increase, but reach in the sense of listening.  Power Point it a great tool to use to get peoples (students) attention and keep them interested.  Power point does this by highlighting key points, using bright colors, animation, and sound.  When a question comes up on the test, a student might recall a slide from the Power Point presentation that will allow him/her to answer the question correctly.

The students will generally be more interested in the lecture and hopefully will better retain the information included in the lecture.  Students might also be impressed with the lecture and genuinely have more interest in the subject matter.  It is a win for teacher and for students.

Teachers should well be aware of these benefits and be willing and able to use the program to enhance their lectures.  They are aware that students will be amused by the sound effects and the humor will pull them in.  Animation will keep them interested  and therefore (hopefully) the information being discussed will stick.  Using   Power Point in my lectures will help both my ability to reach students as well as helping the students acquire and retain the subject matter.

Also making learning better was Benjamin Bloom.  Way, way back in 1956 he led a team of psychologists to come up with a better understanding of student comprehension.  They found that pretty much the only thing that teachers were asking of students was memory based information.  Simple stuff like when, with less emphasis on the why and how.  That would lead to students with great memory retention doing well while a smarter student with a greater knowledge of understanding not doing so well.

He and his team came up with 6 other levels of higher reasoning to grasp subject matter.  These 6 layers of understanding would create a create a greater depth of overall knowledge.  The six levels started with the lowest level of understanding being Knowledge, followed by; Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and finally Evaluation.   Back in the day, students had to know when something happened.  After Benjamin Bloom students had to have a greater level of understanding because the questions that teachers would be asking required analysis, synthesis, and application of their newly acquired knowledge.  He basically made future students universally more intelligent.  He all owe him a smarty level of gratitude.  Conversely, those of us (no one here) can also thank him and his team for all the bad grades they got in history and reading comprehension back in High School.