Source: here.
There are many interesting resources available for teachers online. It's simply a matter of looking for them. Edutopia, a website published by The George Lucas Educational Foundation, is one of these. Lucas is, of course, a legend for his contribution to science fiction, the Star Wars franchise, and technology is one facet of science. The link above offers some tips for how technology can be incorporated into an English classroom. Of the many listed, I am particularly fond of the blog idea and that involving Sonic the Hedgehog, which is somewhat similar to the Halo Odyssey video I posted about - an innovative new look at an old epic. As for the blog, I created a fantasy class blog for one of my projects last semester. Although there were no students to actually test drive it, I set up what I thought were user-friendly tools for eventual students to employ, and it was very fun for me, so I imagined it would be for my students, as well.
Monday, April 30, 2012
(11) Halo Odyssey
Last semester, I took a class somewhat similar to this one, about digital rhetoric. It discussed remix culture and how people can use the web to create new things out of old. When researching for it, I found several intriguing 'Halo Odyssey' projects. An example of one is embed above. Many of these projects were created for English classrooms like the one I will someday have myself. I think what's beneficial about these, although it's evident students have a lot of leeway, is that it's a fun assignment. Students get to manipulate characters they'd probably be playing, anyway, in order to get into the scope of their reading. I would allow my students to create projects like this. Would you?
Saturday, April 28, 2012
(10) WebQuest
I am sad to say that, until recently, I did not investigate the teaching tool WebQuest. I decided to now and found out some of its very wonderful benefits.
1. Teachers are the ones who create groups on WQ, although others can, so they provide the sources. There are a plethora of these, from simple documents to spreadsheets to links.
2. The work done is very group oriented and creates a safe space for even shy students, who do not typically involve themselves in class, to participate in group discussion.
3. There are also tasks/assignments to be done on WQ, which scaffold learning with whatever source provided as the brickwork.
In these ways, WQ can increase critical thinking, but does not help with rote memorization skills involving fact or definition recall. I can, however, imagine myself using it in my classroom.
1. Teachers are the ones who create groups on WQ, although others can, so they provide the sources. There are a plethora of these, from simple documents to spreadsheets to links.
2. The work done is very group oriented and creates a safe space for even shy students, who do not typically involve themselves in class, to participate in group discussion.
3. There are also tasks/assignments to be done on WQ, which scaffold learning with whatever source provided as the brickwork.
In these ways, WQ can increase critical thinking, but does not help with rote memorization skills involving fact or definition recall. I can, however, imagine myself using it in my classroom.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
(9) Robo-Readers
(link to study)
An interesting study by the University of Akron dissects the effectiveness of virtual essay graders and whether they are better or worse than human graders. This study is very integral to English education because it impacts English teachers' jobs. My father used to jokingly say, someday robots will fulfill all needs and humans will be out of work. This may be part of the issue. If a robot can grade students' essays with the same or better results than a human educator, then the skill sets of that educator will be taken for granted. However, that isn't the only cog in the machine. Robo-Readers are praised because they are said to be more objective. The problem with this is that there haven't been nearly enough comprehensive studies over a long period of time that assess the practicality of this. In fact, the supporters and supposed scientists of these RRs may even doctor results. On page nine of the document, it states that several online graders defied state mandated terms when analyzing essays. Although it may save me time to use RRs like this, some level of subjectivity can be appropriate when reading through students' work. There's a strength of content and aspects of their personality that their essays appropriate and these must be appreciated. Like Microsoft Word, it's probably that these robots check for certain key terms and basic grammar continuity. Students may quickly figure this out and, as explained in my last entry, learn to beat and cheat their tests. Further studies must be done on these RRs before they become more heavily used, if they ever do.
An interesting study by the University of Akron dissects the effectiveness of virtual essay graders and whether they are better or worse than human graders. This study is very integral to English education because it impacts English teachers' jobs. My father used to jokingly say, someday robots will fulfill all needs and humans will be out of work. This may be part of the issue. If a robot can grade students' essays with the same or better results than a human educator, then the skill sets of that educator will be taken for granted. However, that isn't the only cog in the machine. Robo-Readers are praised because they are said to be more objective. The problem with this is that there haven't been nearly enough comprehensive studies over a long period of time that assess the practicality of this. In fact, the supporters and supposed scientists of these RRs may even doctor results. On page nine of the document, it states that several online graders defied state mandated terms when analyzing essays. Although it may save me time to use RRs like this, some level of subjectivity can be appropriate when reading through students' work. There's a strength of content and aspects of their personality that their essays appropriate and these must be appreciated. Like Microsoft Word, it's probably that these robots check for certain key terms and basic grammar continuity. Students may quickly figure this out and, as explained in my last entry, learn to beat and cheat their tests. Further studies must be done on these RRs before they become more heavily used, if they ever do.
(8) Coursera and Other Online Courses
(link to article)
Scientists Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller taught several web-based courses at Stanford University last year and were awed to find that they'd touched the educations of at least one hundred thousand students. This is one of the main appeals of online courses. Our Integrating Technology course is example enough of that; where the in class course meets one day a week and tends to about thirty students, our online counterpart reaches one hundred and fifty. This is a huge jump. Ng and Koller found that many other professors were enthralled by the idea of impact so many students' lives all at once. Thus, they created their company, Coursera.
These classes operate as follows: professors partnered with Coursera create interactive lectures. I found their assessment strategy for humanities and social science classes, like English, very interesting. Typically, in those cases, essays are required, but rather than having professors grade over one hundred thousand of these essays (which would be impossible), students are paired with their peers and grade via an established rubric. This way, they are part of the teaching process as makeshift teachers themselves.
The biggest issue with classes offered in programs like Coursera is that they operate on an 'honor code' and are easily cheated. An example of this comes to mind, sadly. My brother's friend, when doing MyAccess assignments from home, had his own older brother write his essays for him, so they could get a 5/5, and his teacher was none-the-wiser. I do like, however, having students play a more hands on role in their education. When I teach, I will try letting my students grade each other's papers in at least a very basic sense. Teaching will actually teach them, in this case.
Scientists Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller taught several web-based courses at Stanford University last year and were awed to find that they'd touched the educations of at least one hundred thousand students. This is one of the main appeals of online courses. Our Integrating Technology course is example enough of that; where the in class course meets one day a week and tends to about thirty students, our online counterpart reaches one hundred and fifty. This is a huge jump. Ng and Koller found that many other professors were enthralled by the idea of impact so many students' lives all at once. Thus, they created their company, Coursera.
These classes operate as follows: professors partnered with Coursera create interactive lectures. I found their assessment strategy for humanities and social science classes, like English, very interesting. Typically, in those cases, essays are required, but rather than having professors grade over one hundred thousand of these essays (which would be impossible), students are paired with their peers and grade via an established rubric. This way, they are part of the teaching process as makeshift teachers themselves.
The biggest issue with classes offered in programs like Coursera is that they operate on an 'honor code' and are easily cheated. An example of this comes to mind, sadly. My brother's friend, when doing MyAccess assignments from home, had his own older brother write his essays for him, so they could get a 5/5, and his teacher was none-the-wiser. I do like, however, having students play a more hands on role in their education. When I teach, I will try letting my students grade each other's papers in at least a very basic sense. Teaching will actually teach them, in this case.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
(7) Interactivity #5
Spreadsheet: Here.
The teacher I interviewed is an eleventh grade English teacher in the Wayne school district. Unfortunately, this teacher was completely unfamiliar with the National Education Technology Standards for both Students and Teachers. I made sure to link to these standards, in the above case, so she could read them. This teacher is older and has been teaching for a while. She hadn't even heard of the NETS. In her classes, she told me technology is used and encouraged, but is not made mandatory by higher authorities of the school. Rather, for her lesson plans, she does not even have a separate section for technology; it is instead interspersed throughout her lesson objectives. She said, for example, that they are currently reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in her class. She scaffolds her students' understanding of the text by having them watch snippets of the film sometime during the unit. Although there are always discrepancies between the text and the film, seeing characters come to life and hearing the way particular lines of the skit are related, can aid visual and auditory learners gain a stronger grasp of the lesson.
The teacher I interviewed is an eleventh grade English teacher in the Wayne school district. Unfortunately, this teacher was completely unfamiliar with the National Education Technology Standards for both Students and Teachers. I made sure to link to these standards, in the above case, so she could read them. This teacher is older and has been teaching for a while. She hadn't even heard of the NETS. In her classes, she told me technology is used and encouraged, but is not made mandatory by higher authorities of the school. Rather, for her lesson plans, she does not even have a separate section for technology; it is instead interspersed throughout her lesson objectives. She said, for example, that they are currently reading Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in her class. She scaffolds her students' understanding of the text by having them watch snippets of the film sometime during the unit. Although there are always discrepancies between the text and the film, seeing characters come to life and hearing the way particular lines of the skit are related, can aid visual and auditory learners gain a stronger grasp of the lesson.
My teacher's school district has not
yet begun to implement the NETS-S and NETS-T standards. Older
teachers like her have likely never heard of these standards. I
discussed, however, Interactivity 5 with someone in my class, who
also interviewed a teacher from the Wayne school district. This
teacher's a recent graduate of Rutgers University's teaching program
and, while her school also hasn't implemented the NETS, she learned
about them in her teaching courses. I think this is generally the
case. From what I recall of high school, many of my older educators
were daunted by technology because they didn't grow up with it the
way new teachers are. The most done in English classes I experienced
was screening of films for our reading texts. Newer teachers use
technologies like smartboards or even iPads to further their
students' understanding. Doing this helps them to relate to
students. In a blog post I read, someone wrote about how cellphones
are used in places without more advanced technology to help students.
Even if teachers cannot give students access to computers, they can
encourage them to use their phones, something most students have, to
take pictures or make films for school. This is wiser than fighting
against new technology – for example, taking phones away when
students text in class. Technology that is 'questionable' can be used
to ameliorate students' educations.
Although the NETS were originally
created in 1998, it's apparent and not very surprising that many
teachers don't yet know about them. Their importance is nonetheless
observable and, as a future teacher, I'd encourage my peers to
incorporate them. Standard #2 for the NETS-S highlights communication
and collaboration. Students use digital technologies to make contact
with one another. With how difficult it is for students' schedules to
correlate, anyone can see the benefit of an online discussion group
where students can sign in and share input.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
(6) NJ/PA CRLA Conference
As a future English teacher, I've been given a very amazing opportunity to tutor English writing (100, 105 and 106) by the Center for Academic Development and Assessment, here at MSU. By comprehensively dissecting essays with members of our campus community, I've gained confidence in my own abilities as an educator. I'm also afforded other advantages, such as frequent tutor training.
I had one such experience of this on March 16th, during spring break, when I helped to represent our university at the New Jersey/Pennsylvania College Reading and Learning Association (a sponsor of my employer, CADA). For free, I attended many seminars pertaining to tutoring that could just as easily be employed in a larger classroom; the particular seminars I chose were, as expected of an English major, related to literature. One seminar honed specifically on technology.
It's common knowledge that text and chat lingo contribute to the distillation of students' output in writing classes. Although it's hard to believe, many students, even in college, do not know how to alternate between the informal lexicon they use with their friends and that reserved for authority figures. The job market is such that being able to express oneself in written and oral speech is pertinent to acquiring a respectable position. If graduated students reply to an extension of an interview opportunity with, "C u there," they are guaranteed not to get the job.
This is something every English teacher should learn to work around. We cannot simply tell our students to do something; we have to show them. The CRLA conference technology seminar gave great examples of what struggling teachers could do. At the very start of the class, as an introduction, students could be required to compose an email to their teacher about a pseudo-issue (an absence, request for tutoring, etc.). The teacher could then analyze with the class what about these emails was done right and wrong.
Another example dictated that English teachers (and perhaps teachers in general) should explicate to students the severity of social networks being abused by employers to pick and choose who gets what position. A volunteer's facebook status (not necessarily a student's, but perhaps a fake account's or a teacher's friend's account) could be dissected by the class. The teacher would pose the question, would you hire this person if you were an employer? In the example given during the seminar, it was the presenter's fiance's status. He wrote something along the lines of, "gotz a b in sceince. cn't bleive i passed yo," with gratuitous grammatical errors. In this situation, even if students write this way themselves, it's put into a different perspective for them and they acknowledge they would not hire this person, given the opportunity. It's not completely fair for them to have to censor themselves, but with the internet as public as it is, some wariness could be beneficial. The assignment students had to do as homework after this required them to copy/paste one of their own statuses and revamp it for a more formal setting.
I think using technology this way, rather than fighting is, is the only way to decrease its occasional negative impact on students.
I had one such experience of this on March 16th, during spring break, when I helped to represent our university at the New Jersey/Pennsylvania College Reading and Learning Association (a sponsor of my employer, CADA). For free, I attended many seminars pertaining to tutoring that could just as easily be employed in a larger classroom; the particular seminars I chose were, as expected of an English major, related to literature. One seminar honed specifically on technology.
It's common knowledge that text and chat lingo contribute to the distillation of students' output in writing classes. Although it's hard to believe, many students, even in college, do not know how to alternate between the informal lexicon they use with their friends and that reserved for authority figures. The job market is such that being able to express oneself in written and oral speech is pertinent to acquiring a respectable position. If graduated students reply to an extension of an interview opportunity with, "C u there," they are guaranteed not to get the job.
This is something every English teacher should learn to work around. We cannot simply tell our students to do something; we have to show them. The CRLA conference technology seminar gave great examples of what struggling teachers could do. At the very start of the class, as an introduction, students could be required to compose an email to their teacher about a pseudo-issue (an absence, request for tutoring, etc.). The teacher could then analyze with the class what about these emails was done right and wrong.
Another example dictated that English teachers (and perhaps teachers in general) should explicate to students the severity of social networks being abused by employers to pick and choose who gets what position. A volunteer's facebook status (not necessarily a student's, but perhaps a fake account's or a teacher's friend's account) could be dissected by the class. The teacher would pose the question, would you hire this person if you were an employer? In the example given during the seminar, it was the presenter's fiance's status. He wrote something along the lines of, "gotz a b in sceince. cn't bleive i passed yo," with gratuitous grammatical errors. In this situation, even if students write this way themselves, it's put into a different perspective for them and they acknowledge they would not hire this person, given the opportunity. It's not completely fair for them to have to censor themselves, but with the internet as public as it is, some wariness could be beneficial. The assignment students had to do as homework after this required them to copy/paste one of their own statuses and revamp it for a more formal setting.
I think using technology this way, rather than fighting is, is the only way to decrease its occasional negative impact on students.
Monday, April 2, 2012
(5) Social Networking as a Way of Understanding Perspective in an English Classroom
Last semester, in my CURR 312-03 (Teaching English Language Learners) class, the lesson plan in my content area given to me to modify was based on understanding perspective. The main text for this lesson was The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, which retold the popular three pig fairy tale in the big bad wolf's point of view. I found it very intriguing because it defied the conventional idea of a protagonist and forced students to look through the eyes of a character they might otherwise be unsympathetic to.
I recently started tutoring a student for my READ 411 class's fieldwork. N is eleven and very good at math. Just Wednesday, she was telling me about how she was chosen to take a special math placement test. English, however, is very difficult for her to grasp sometimes. Like me, she is American born, but the child of Bengali immigrants who can't always help her in English the way they can in math, which has a more universal language.
I asked N this weekend if she was familiar with facebook, to which she replied, "Well, duh, don't you have one?" This is a response I feel may be common to children and young adults nowadays, but I think it's possible to use it to our advantage, particularly in an English classroom. With that in mind, and tasked to create a multimedia lesson plan for READ 411, N and I read the introduction of D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. This is a text I recommend to any teacher introducing Greek mythology, which can be very dark, to very young students. The intro outlined the disparities between titans and gods and how the balance of power between them continually shifted.
After we'd read the intro, I asked N to recap it for me as briefly as she could. Once that was complete, I inquired whether she had a favorite character; she chose, quite obviously, Zeus, who is outlined as the hero who brought the tyrannical titans to their knees. D'Aulaires is especially wonderful because it helped N understand the complex family dynamic of the Olympians, the upper echelon of the gods. I urged her to take this understanding and, to assess it, create a facebook for Zeus that incorporated statuses and relationships to properly portray his perspective and his interaction with the other gods. This was a really fun task for her. She seemed to instantly know based on Zeus' dialogue in the myths that he might not speak to his peers the way she does hers. I noted down specific things she wrote as statuses (hiding from Hera again, getting advice from Athena, keeping Aphrodite away from flirty gods, etc), as well as the image she took from Google to use as Zeus' profile picture.
I think having students do something like this in a greater quantity, in my future classroom, would not only cater to their interests, but also help them get into the head-space of a character they might not otherwise care for. N told me she liked doing what we did, that it was fun, and there are vast differences between an ageless male god and an eleven year old girl, but she closed this gap almost effortlessly during the assignment.
I recently started tutoring a student for my READ 411 class's fieldwork. N is eleven and very good at math. Just Wednesday, she was telling me about how she was chosen to take a special math placement test. English, however, is very difficult for her to grasp sometimes. Like me, she is American born, but the child of Bengali immigrants who can't always help her in English the way they can in math, which has a more universal language.
I asked N this weekend if she was familiar with facebook, to which she replied, "Well, duh, don't you have one?" This is a response I feel may be common to children and young adults nowadays, but I think it's possible to use it to our advantage, particularly in an English classroom. With that in mind, and tasked to create a multimedia lesson plan for READ 411, N and I read the introduction of D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. This is a text I recommend to any teacher introducing Greek mythology, which can be very dark, to very young students. The intro outlined the disparities between titans and gods and how the balance of power between them continually shifted.
After we'd read the intro, I asked N to recap it for me as briefly as she could. Once that was complete, I inquired whether she had a favorite character; she chose, quite obviously, Zeus, who is outlined as the hero who brought the tyrannical titans to their knees. D'Aulaires is especially wonderful because it helped N understand the complex family dynamic of the Olympians, the upper echelon of the gods. I urged her to take this understanding and, to assess it, create a facebook for Zeus that incorporated statuses and relationships to properly portray his perspective and his interaction with the other gods. This was a really fun task for her. She seemed to instantly know based on Zeus' dialogue in the myths that he might not speak to his peers the way she does hers. I noted down specific things she wrote as statuses (hiding from Hera again, getting advice from Athena, keeping Aphrodite away from flirty gods, etc), as well as the image she took from Google to use as Zeus' profile picture.
I think having students do something like this in a greater quantity, in my future classroom, would not only cater to their interests, but also help them get into the head-space of a character they might not otherwise care for. N told me she liked doing what we did, that it was fun, and there are vast differences between an ageless male god and an eleven year old girl, but she closed this gap almost effortlessly during the assignment.
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