EDTP 620 Blog for 6-29

Well, Laura and I were able to do the Book Trailer today, and I believe that it is very good. It starts off with what people might dream about (with a few funny extras) then goes into the subject matters of our book. We added music and my voice (in a scary tone) for some good audio and worked to get the timing down just right. It was a worthwhile project to do and a lot of fun to make.

EDTP 620 Blog for 6-28

I have been working on both the Readers/Writers project and the Book Trailer in the past three days. For the Book Trailer, Laura and I are still ironing out the details but it should be good when it is finished. For the Readers/Writers project, I have decided to do a class/teacher/parent communication project that includes bi-weekly/monthly news letters and a Class-blog for happenings in the class and past/future assignments. I contacted a parent that I talked to frequently during the last school year, and her idea about better communication was to have something on-line that parents could go to, to see what has been happening in the class. So I intend to create a weblog that will give parents the daily activities in class and what has been going on recently, just in case they are not being told everything at home. I created a class newsletter with help from an on-line creation website and I like how it looks. I am still looking for literature to help with the third genre, but with a little more work I should come up with an idea here soon.

EDTP 620 Blog for 6-25

This blog is over the Springfield Township Video blog on our class wiki. I found it interesting that a school had the opportunity to podcast so many different areas of English and reading to a website. I believe that many students learn better from both a visual and auditory manner through technology. I also find it good that there are different categories for students to be able to podcast from Math to certain books for Catcher in the Rye.

Laura and myself are teamed up to do the Book Trailer Assignment on our book, "The Number Devil." There are many different concepts in the book and I think that this is where our story line will come from.

EDTP 620 Blog for 6-22

Today my group and I did the podcast for "Chew on This". I wasn't worried at all about doing the project because Justin and I had already done a podcast in Teaching with Technology. I came up with several of the questions and the group pondered about several other questions to ask. In the end we condensed the podcast down to four really good questions. The podcast went as a form of the political talk show "The McLaughlin Group". I was the moderator with the other members of the group acting as the analysts. Different questions were asked to different members of the group and I gave my opinion at the end of each question. It was a lot of fun and a lot of laughs, and it was also a very successful. I am hoping that we did well enough that our next podcast assignment will be knocked out, not that I don't enjoy doing the podcast, it just will be one thing less on our plates.

620 Blog for 6-20

I am continuing to read "Chew on This" and keep being amazed at the things that I did not know (or angered me). The whole potato thing really ticks me off. I do know that Idaho is a big potato state, who doesn't. What I did not know was that 3 companies control 80% of the potato sales, mostly to the fast food industry, and that small farms are easily put out of business by the low prices offered by the same industry. Those McDonald fries are less tempting everyday.

For the Literature review, I think the group will do an excerpt from the show the "McLaughlin Group", which is a weekly commentary group hosted by John McLaughlin, that predict future recent political moves and comment on current political situations. If you have seen the movie "Independence Day" it is on there. I will be playing John McLaughlin, firing questions to certain people about "Chew on This", allow them to respond, then put in my own two cents. I felt that something more creative was needed that just a simple 3 minute podcast (especially if we want to not do the next one).

EDTP 620 Blog for 6-19

I just started reading "Chew on This" today and I can't seem to put it down, even for a good on-line game of pot limit Omaha Hold-em (a poker game). I have already gotten a page of notes out of the first 70 pages, which is past the point of phenominal for me. I haven't even gotten to the unhealthy part yet.

Reading through the book I found many interesting items that I see everyday but never truly think about as I am driving along. I carefully read over the sections on how children are targeted as a source of high profit. How often do I see a playground at a fast food restaurant which has the obvious purpose of bringing in children. But I never thought that the children would have to bring an adult or two and/or friends with them, which means more money spent. I also remember in 1997 when McDonald's had Beanie Babies and how fast they went. I remember going there and people complaining that every story was out. Little did I really think they cared with sales going up 10 fold.

I also never considered where the fun yet throat lodging toys are made and by whom. The Chinese people are paid nothing and work long hours. This reminds me of slave labor. Like I have said, I haven't gotten to far in the book but my want to have another 20 piece chicken McNugget is gone.

6-18-2007 Blog for EDTP 620

First things first, It is Jennifer and I's anniversary (Married two years), so horrah for us. As for the previous blog, yes, I do understand the meaning of 'canon': I have a Minor in Latin and one in Classical Languages, I just felt the author overused the word and did not understand why, that is why I chose it as one of my words. Let this be a lesson to all future teachers; in my experience you have to have fun and enjoy what you do and make a joke (although not at anyone's expense, because you may inadvertantly hurt their feelings) and go on. It is one of the best ways to build a rapport with students, show a lighter side sometimes.

But on with the Blog. Todays presentation by the Social Studies/History discipline was very interesting. I found it interesting the way the activity was geared toward making predictions with little or imperfect information. I would have liked to heard that students were not only given a chance to form a prediction but have a minute or so to research to see if their prediction may be correct. But by following it up and leading to the conclusion with more predictions, I was able to connect it to my own discipline (math) by thinking how certain long problems could be predicted on using a multiple choice format with the students working out the problems as they go along. Keep working hard Social Studies teachers, I have always found history fascinating and students need to be in tune with their past.

Ah yes, the phone conversation. At first I was a little hesitant to try it, because my understanding of the exact context was a little shaky, or was that just a lack of Diet Pepsi? Anyway, after the first caller, I began to understand the point of the lesson was to talk about the different perspectives that the class had on a particular topic, but in a fun way where every person had the opportunity to participate in an orderly way. I tried to think of a way to use this idea in math, and I can but I would have to change the problems after each ring and correct answer, and maybe allow only people one at a time to ring in if they can answer the question, or have it in a group format as a sort of game or competition.

6-16 Weblog Post

Today I read Chapters 4 and 15 in the "Adolescent Literacy" book, and although I found the chapters insightful, along with finding my 5 questions, I did see I few things that caught my eye. First was the vocabulary: I really did not find 5 words that I did not know or understand, only that I was not totally clear on (sorry, but I am a person that does not lie). Words like canonize and voluminous I know but could not, at first, understand the context to which they were used in the readings. I did however find the word "delve" which I had not seen before, so I was glad to learn something new.

In Chapter 15, I thought the three conclusions for inquiry that have strong implications for classroom practice were very clear cut, understandable, and have good focus for literacy. I especially like #2: Expand notions of text and curriculum, and what counts as meaningful reading and learning. I feel that expanding the ideas of text and curriculum towards the visions of not only the school but its student interests, is a fantastic way to spur literacy in students. The other, although weird, thing I noticed is the use of the word "canonize" three times in the chapter, when the author spoke about literature and books. I do not know if the author is Roman Catholic or not but I don't know if he wants to raise some books to the level of sainthood or if he just thinks that highly of literacy. Although I would find it interesting to have "Saint Book I", I think he overused the word a bit in the chapter. If I am mistaken about the meanings of the words, please let me know on my comment board.

For tonights reading, was especially drawn to pg. 151 about "Thinking to the New Literacy Skills"where the book asks if the new literacy skills are of the twenty-first century or new wine in old bottles. After reading and considering each of the points, my belief is that all of these are just old wine in new bottles with the partial exception of #1, but only because it adds the word "media" to look technological. There is no difference in this report to one twenty years ago, and if they think what makes it different is adding a technological aspect, then what are they going to do in ten more years when better technology emerges, besides add yet another one word phrase to make it look different. The three types all deal with processing information, communicating, and accountability to one's self and a group. These skills have worked for a long time, and are great sources for spreading literacy, but nothing here is considered new.

As for the Pre-Cal Blog........WOW! I looked through the collaboration and was thrilled to see so much mathematics being done on such a wide scale. I even found some basic Algebra that I teach in my class about functions and relations! I find it fascinating that so many people are interested in commenting on math throughout the web and sharing their ideas about problems and solutions.

EDTP 620 Blog for 6-13

During the class on Wednesday we talked about our readings and did an activity in our disciplines where we listed the literacy importancies for our subjects. Our group (Math) came up with several that determined, in the end, whether the student had a knowledge of answering why or how something is done, i.e. inquiry learning. During the discussions about our readings, the class was really into the "Adolescent Literacy" book, especially the parts on NCLB, the different studies done by people that had not seen a classroom in years and people that had never taught in the classroom. Even though I have only been teaching for one year, I feel that most teachers are in disagreement with the focus of NCLB. One of the examples, was the poem by the student from Detroit who wrote an excellent poem about the city he left, but had to change it to meet the requirements of his portfolio. This really took away from the fantastic work of the student, and turn a great poem into a flaccid portfolio piece; but apparently that is what the people posing studies want. In my perspective, as long as beautiful pieces of literature from students who are looked down upon are changed to meet the needs of the people who do these kinds of studies, then these people are always going to have something to complain about in their reports, instead of allowing their minds to open up, and great change to happen. And to answer your question, YES, I did put that mildly.

EDTP 620 Blog for 6-12

Hello, Hello, Hello,

In today's first class (not to be confused with an airplane) we began with an activity about words that went into a book but were in a different language. I found it interesting that the book was written by an ESL student on his comprehension of words in his native language. I knew the origins of some of the words, but others seemed to be just misspelled. I think that this activity opened my mind to what ESL students may see on a daily basis from their English speaking teachers.

I also found it great that we are going to make a Digital Story in this class as we did in Teaching with Technology. As soon as I heard it, I started brainstorming ideas about my project. I have decided to do a digital story for the first day of class (for my Algebra students) about why I love to teach math and what they are going to learn and get them motivated for it. I think that if I could make a story about why they need to be excited about learning Algebra and the things they are going to do, then I can filter that throughout the entire year.