Technology in Use

I wanted to share an example of a way in which students can use technology in a language arts classroom.  For this project, the students found examples of poetic devices in popular songs today.  This is a great way to make learning these devices accessible to students because students can relate to the pop culture references. 

The students make great use of the internet, and video recording device.  The ultimate product is a video encompassing definitions and examples of all the devices they learned.  Technology integration worked wonders for this lesson.

Interactivity #4

Lesson Plan Map Analysis

I chose this lesson plan because utilizing an online blog is great medium through which to practice some creative writing.  A blog that every group member has access to is a space that allows for great group collaboration, because the final product is something tangible, created solely by the students.  It also demonstrates the accessibility of online technologies.  If the students had access to a computer and internet, they could access their project from anywhere.  If they didn’t have access to those tools, the lesson plan gave them options to do work in class.

Overall I thought the lesson plan had little to no gaps.  The lesson plan did a great job channeling what the students know to help them produce an online blog.  They learned HTML coding, as well as how to navigate blogs, to ultimately help their creative writing style.  I think where there was a gap was when it came to examples.  The United States is not an example of a Utopian society they may find in literature.  I think the lesson plan needs to incorporate more literature that helps target the learning standards.  Incorporating Utopian examples from more literature will bolster the how much it targets the standards.

Utilizing a blog site is essential to achieve the curriculum goal because it allows for students to simulate the collaboration necessary to establish any community.  Students could have filled information out on a poster, but using a blog site they could be anywhere, and work on the project.  It allows for a more fluid group work experience than just an in class assignment could provide.  Since each member can make their own blog post, the Utopian society becomes a group effort with personal touches.

Adaptations, adaptations, adaptations

Something I have come across recently is the strong need for adaptations in the classroom.  I do not mean adaptations for specific students.  When I say adaptations, I mean thinking on your feet--improvisation.  What happens when a projector doesn't work?  What happens if the computer you wanted to use isn't playing a video?  Most relevant, what happens when not everyone in your classroom has access to technology that is needed in classroom participation?

Teaching is like acting.  Everything you do in front of the classroom is a reaction to something.  You teach your lesson the way you know your students learn best, and you also assign them homework that they need.  So when something goes awry in the classroom it would make sense to follow this path.  If you're teaching and the projector doesn't work.  There better be a back up lesson, or a way to still teach the lesson without the projector.  I experienced this in one of my classes held in University Hall.  The projector failed to turn on, and so the professor cancelled class.  This was wasted time that could have more appropriately been used had he moved on to another subject or done the lesson with adaptations.

When students lack the appropriate tools to participate in the classroom, it seems that there is nothing that a teacher can do remedy that situation; however, there are many things that the teacher can do.  In my classroom, I would allow for time in the classroom for the students to work on a project or a paper if they didn't have a computer at home.  If students need dictionaries, or tools they can only obtain at the library or at school, then I would assign library time.  If a student can't have access to these tools at home, then it is the teacher's responsibility to make an adaptation in the lesson plans to help the student lacking that access.  It is important that a teacher is flexible, and ready to change the lesson on the spot.  This is something that is important for a teacher to know because of the unpredictability of the events of the classroom.

"Social Media Offer Classes a New Feed"

I was perusing USA Today while baking cookies, and this headline caught my eye immediately.  The article began by saying something we all know:  Those students that obsess with social media while doing work tend to not do as well on quizzes.  But an even more recent study has shown that those teachers that incorporate students' social media such as Twitter may actually be helping the students learn!  I think what resonated within me most is that one of the professors said "social media is here and we as educators have to acknowledge that."  I think this comment is what makes classes such as these so valuable.  Technology and the future of technology is inevitable.  Trying to avoid technologies and social media is a fruitless effort.  I feel like incorporating technologies that are relevant to the students and not just useful will provide a synergistic effect that will give them the best possible education.  The article also gave an example that one professor is doing.  Jen Lee Reeves of University of Missouri actually has her students tweet about the lesson during class.  When she goes back to check her phone it is all there.  I like this way of incorporating technology into class because students like Twitter, and it is a fun and innovative way to get students to collaborate, or to take notes.  I think that I will use something like this when I become a teacher at a school.  It sounds to me like it is a live version of a discussion board.  Of course, within limits, I would like to use this, because I don't want to be left behind when it comes to technology and social media.  If social media is going to be present in my students' lives, I may as well use it.

Interactivity #3

Going into this project, I was with the mindset that finding technologies for teaching English would be difficult because we don’t rely on computers, or other technologies like that.  That misconception was quickly shattered when I discovered a website with many different lists, and techniques for incorporating technology into an English classroom (www.tewt.com).  I quickly learned that technology doesn’t equal electronics.  In an education setting, a technology is more like a tool.  Technologies such as Discussion boards and collaborative writing parallel the kind of work we did with this exercise.  They use group work to achieve a common end product. I was happy to see that we included Google Docs in our technologies, because we won’t know the potential of technologies until we actually try them ourselves.  One of my favorite technologies that I found was a comic book.  A comic book is such a great way for students to analyze a story map because it incorporates visuals, and also the literacy aspect that every student has to master.  The most interesting find was that technologies are not housed solely within an electronic device.  A technology such as Wordle (a website that formulates word clouds) is an exercise that can be done without a computer.  Then there were technologies such as Ning and Edmodo (educational social media).  With these technologies, a student could create a profile for a famous author or character and practice their literacy skills again!  The potential for the use of technologies is infinite and requires minimal effort to incorporate it in an effective way.  Now that I have accumulated a list of different technologies I can use in my classroom, this list has become a technology for me to use.

Interactivity #2

Instructional television seems to have been the most influential form of technology during this particular time period.  The entire clip seemed to revolve around its evolution, usage and benefits.  This leads me to question as an English teacher, what place would this have in my classroom today?  From what I could gather in the video, the instructional television was the center of learning.  If learning came from this media, what role did books play when all learning centered on watching television?  This reduces the importance of reading and analyzing in an English classroom because televisions are made the most important teaching tool.  Since the nation wanted to stress science and math instead of English, was diverting attention from literature to television the government’s method to accomplish this task.  Technology does not always have to be beneficial in the classroom, especially if the instructor does not know how to properly make use of the material to connect with their subject area.

            Television/film has had a great impact in teaching English because of it’s difficulty in usage.  Many teachers of the past used television incorrectly.  They would just use “TV programs as a time-filler or show a movie as a reward for good behavior rather than use it as a text for critical analysis” (Domine 46).  Even when television took an educational turn with Channel One news, the teachers had “no control over the programming, and couldn’t really use it as part of the classroom curriculum” (46).  Historic films can be made objective; however, when it comes to transferring literature to the big screen, accuracy is sacrificed, as classic canon is traded for Hollywood action shots that will generate revenue.  Students have to make a decision because television entices them to watch more exciting films rather than the accurately depicted ones. For those of you that have seen Easy A, Emma Stone’s character explains how one movie version of the Scarlet Letter is accurate, while the other one just has Demi Moore talk “in a fake British Accent and [take] a lot of baths.”  She continues to say that saying that this version “was freely adapted would be a bit of an understatement.” Grace’s mother said that “the more the students liked a film, the less they learned from it” (44).  When we show our students books turned films, are we showing them what the author intended to see, or what consumerism forced the book to become?  Its not whether the book is better than the movie, but how accurate does the movie portray the book?

Even when educational programming was attempted, the interview states that it was very limited; sometimes broadcasts would be of music recitals, how to pronounce words in French, or how to correctly brush teeth (45).  But how does that show themes in a book, characterization, or how to analyze plot?  Television can be applied for many different materials; however, English teachers are very limited in the way they can utilize this technology.  Oftentimes, as stated above, television is used incorrectly.

(I complied the images together to make this image and added the quote as well)

WORKS CITED

Domine, Vanessa. "A Social History of Media, Technology and Schooling." The National Association for Media Literacy Education’s Journal of Media Literacy Education 1 (2009): 42-52. JMLE. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. .

Domine, Vanessa. "Rethinking Technology in Schools Primer." New York: Peter Lang, 2009. Print.

Easy A. Dir. Will Gluck. Perf. Emma Stone. Screen Gems, 2010. DVD

IMAGES FOUND USING GOOGLE:

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 

Boy standing in front of door 

Alice in Wonderland Movie Poster 

Just Too Much Information

I stumbled across this article while doing research for another class, and was taken aback by the relevance that it has to my life at this time.  Moments before finding this article, I had read Dr. Domine's posting about online professionalism, and I found Pamela Paul's article in The New York Times about posting too much personal information on the internet. 

"There are things I'd rather just not know about you," Paul says to open her article; she complains how people in this age share too much information that does not need to be shared.  She compares the shared information to a "lodged piece of corn," never to be unseen or forgotten.

With this in mind, as future educators we must proceed with utmost caution regarding the material that we post to our Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.  (you take your pick on your favorite form of social media); however, no matter the playing field, the rules never change.  Once something is posted on the internet, it can no longer be removed.  It is important for us to make the right decisions about how we want to be perceived by others in a professional environment. 

Perception is the key to success anywhere.  Perception is what gives a potential employer their first impression of us.  Paul says that something we believe to be "witty, original and winning often comes across to the rest of the world as sloppily confessional, self-promotional or trite."  We may be doing postings for our personal enjoyment, and self-expression, but we cannot control who views our material, or what their interpretation of our beliefs are.

We must not only monitor what we post ourselves, but also what others post on our walls or profiles.  Walls and profiles are a direct affiliation of the owner of said object.  The article also quotes Adam Werbach; he says that “People will post things on my Facebook walls — political statements that are just strange — religious rants that don’t reflect my values,” but because of the liberty that the internet allots to people, he cannot control the views of his friends and that may form a misconception to anyone who reads his posts.

Technology may not only be a tool that could be detrimental to a student's learning ability, it can also be detrimental to the new teacher seeking employment.  Just like technology can be beneficial to a student when it is learned to be used properly, so can technology aid the teacher in the classroom.  Not only do students need to obtain a literacy for technology so that there is an equal balance between social and educational technology, but so does the future employee.  We need to reach a point where we either don't use technology for social media purposes and have "TMI" on our profiles, or learn--like the student--how to create a balance between technology for educational purposes and entertainment. 

Needless to say, the information she covers is quite haunting to think about as it relates to the future job hunt. I sit here writing this now, thinking frantically: Is there something on my Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr (the list is ongoing) that would make me an unfavorable candidate for a job?  The profile we created was our responsibility to maintain, and now it is our responsibility to make sure that it does not stand in the way of us getting a job.  While the article has a hint of humor, the matters it covers are very very real, and very applicable to us.

If anyone is interested in reading the article, here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/fashion/tmi-i-dont-want-to-know.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=all