CLRN

CLRN is simply a great website, I know this blog is simply going to be a re-hashing of a lot of the other blogs I already read on this topic, but really, what an unbelievable resource to have come across. I have spent some time going through it and am not sure I have even scratched the surface of what could be useful in the classroom. I am not sure what else to say, there is a wealth of information and ideas available, we should all be made aware of it.

Lesson Plans

Lesson planning is always fun, actually it's hardly ever fun, in my experience about two-thirds of lesson plans end up being a waste. As much as you try you will probably never be able to stick to the specifics of your plans. Questions will come up or the expected questions may not come up, someone may need something else explained to them, someone may want to bring something up that you didn't think of. At the end of the class you are hardly ever where you thought you would be or where you think you should be.

With that being said lesson plans can actually pretty useful, but in my opinion they have to stay away from specifics. I think lesson plans can be more useful if you keep them general and allow them to be flexible. The classroom can not be a completely rigid place, structure has its place, but we need to be able to move in different directions all the time.

Classroom Technology

I love the idea of bringing technology into the classroom, but I think the classroom of the future in the video is a little to cluttered and has too much going on. I almost feel like we are encouraging students to be a little too hap-hazard. The video talks about a teacher circulating the room to oversee the completion of tasks, basically making a teacher more of a babysitter in my opinion. All of the technology is great but it seems to me that at some point it will take the personality out of the classroom. Not every student learns the same way, but in this case we are forcing them into a mold that not all will be comfortable in and furthermore we are forcing teachers into a mold that may not be comfortable.

Different teaching styles is generally what makes a day exciting in the high school setting, how are we going to reach students or keep them from getting bored when they are being told to do the same things every day in every class. Personality and style have got to be just as important to a teacher as they are to anyone else. Technology is great, but too much of anything can be bad for you, we need to have a balance to make sure we are reaching everyone at some point.

Social Networking Videos...

The two gentlemen in the first video confused me a bit, odd to think about the simplicity of a book, and that at some point it was a new, novel idea, that needed to be explained. It made me think about how I would instruct someone to open and read a book and what to do when they are done, and furthermore how would I explain other really simple tasks...like creating a blog or navigating the internet! Then in turn made me think about the way I explain things in my classroom, am I simplifying enough? or too much? Am I encouraging them to think? I'd like to believe I am and have been careful to choose my words, but I think for the next few days anyway I will be a little more conscious of it...I think I overthought the video a little.

Videos like the second and third videos regarding social networking and internet safety always frighten me a little bit and make me nervous for my students. I know they all have Facebook and Myspace pages and I fear exactly what goes on when they become faceless internet users. I've seen fights between kids and heard some downright MEAN things passed amongst students when they are face-to-face, I can't imagine what goes on when they do not have to look each other in the eyes and are simply typing to a screen. You'd like to think these kids would be nicer to each other but as we saw in the video even polar bears can have a mean streak...

Webpage...

I have completed my web-page although I have not released the information to my students yet. I think I am going to wait until the beginning of next year before I do so. I think I am going to continue to update it and use the 4th quarter as a practice for keeping it up to date. Hopefully by next year it will be part of the routine for me and rather than a hassle, it will just be part of the class and my preparation.

As I said before I actually thought scholastic was easy to use and I like the items they suggest you use on class pages. Navigation was simple and while I do not like all of the advertisements and things that ended up on the sides of the page, the rest of the layout is good. All in all I think this is something that is definitely going to be a part of my class, I like the idea of extending the classroom to the home. We are living in a "point and click" world, web-based education is becoming the best way to reach our students.

Webpage...

I've been working tirelessly on my webpage, trying to figure out exactly how often it needs to be updated and what to include. At one point I think I was over-updating, trying to include everything I could think of and everything I came across that I thought would have some relevance. Unfortunately and obviously this was just too much, so I decided on a different course of action. I decided that while it is not operational just yet i would update it as if it were. I think by doing this I can practice keeping up with what needs to be included and at the same time figure out what is useful. So far I have worked out a pretty good system of updating about twice a week and am hoping that by the time this project is due, there will be about 3 weeks of assignments and information on it.

Building A Webpage II

So I have been building my web page and it coming along very easily. Scholastic is simple and extremely user-friendly, which is making the process that much easier.

The challenge so far has been in determining what needs to be included and how often it would have to be updated or rather how often I would be able to update it. I think a class webpage should be a supplement to the classroom but also include information about required assignments. It is because of this that I am afraid there will be too much on the page and may lead to navigation problems, as well as students being a bit overwhelmed, especially at in the first few weeks.

Knowing that I had online classes even during my under-grad days and knowing that online and hybrid classes are really becoming more and more common, I think it is an important to include things like this in high schools even at a basic level. Which brings me back to the original problem, I want this to be functional and can not decide exactly how in depth to go right away.

Building A Webpage...

The idea of building a webpage is something I have long considered but never could find the time or figure out how to organize my content. I always wondered about the practicality of it all, exactly how I would fit it into the lesson plan without overwhelming the students, and what to do if a student did not have internet access, which up until very recetly was a possibility.

Personally I love the idea of adding this to my class. I think it would give students a chance to use the internet for something more then updating their Facebook status. As I mentioned in my previous post, I believe students want to find ways to get away from books and move towards learning materials that are fun and engaging. I think hybrid classes combining the classroom with web based meetings and materials has got to be the way of the future, or rather the present, even in high schools.

Web-Based Resources

I personally do not think there is anything more valuable to our students than the world wide web at this point. I know this is not a novel opinion or ground-breaking idea in any way, but I think it is important to remind ourselves every now and then how much is actually available on the web. Web-based resources obviously provide students with an opportunity to continue a lesson at home, again nothing ground-breaking there. The difference between anything traditional and anything web-based is the fun factor. Let's face it people, the internet and the web are fun and easy and a lot of the stuff is more attention grabbing. Now, imagine yourself in the mind of teenager...books are boring! They do not want to read or go to the library, at this point I think it's fair to say we need the internet and the web.

With most of my classes I have eliminated the idea of doing any kind of traditional research paper and replaced with argumentative essay questions. In these assignments I always instruct students to go to the internet and back up any opinion with the facts that swayed them one way or another citing each web-site used of course. I realize that there is value in knowing how to research something properly, but in a point and click world 99.9% of students are going straight to web for the information anyway. Furthermore, thanks to tools like ERIC and the EBSCO Host, all the information you would normally need for a research paper, is available through web-based sources, why wouldn't we encourage our students to go there? It's easier then pouring through encyclopedias and scholarly journals and because of this students are more likely to push research beyond what is expected of them.

As I said earlier, my opinions aren't ground-breaking but I think we need to remind ourselves sometimes that everything you could possible want ever at anytime, anywhere is probably available on the Web. And if its not there now, fear not, reasearch predicts that over the next three years, the amount of data and information on the web will roughly DOUBLE every 11 HOURS, (1990's Tech, History Channel - Winter 2008.) So if the climate patterns on one of the moons of Jupiter are eluding you this morning, check back after dinner.

Kidspiration

The biggest advantage I can see with Kidspiration is interaction. I have used the program a little bit and have found that using it with the Smart-board can work wonders in the classroom. I personally love the idea of having students learning from each other as opposed to me standing and lecturing non-stop. I feel as though at some point regardless of how exciting I am or how exciting the material is, some students will be lost.

This software is extremely student friendly and can allow the teacher present information in a way that students may not have seen before. It also provides teachers with more efficient ways of organizing information. Before using products like Power Point, I can remember days when I would have information scribbled across the board in different places with no apparent ryhme or reason. Thanks to tools like these, I have been able to better organize myself during class periods and keep students better oranized, it keeps the class on point and helps keep my thoughts straight and keeping my head straight can be 90% of the battle somedays!

Blogging

So today I'm blogging about blogging, just wanted to type that because it seemed odd...Anyway to the point, so far I like this part of the class and its opened my eyes to entire world I knew very little about. I thought at first it would be a hassle not only to write my own blog to keep up with and comment on others. But I think, especially with the Webquest, it was almost reassuring to find out others were having the same difficulties I was.

Now that I have had some practice with this, albeit very limited, I have been looking for ways to include this in some way to my classroom. I would like at some point to launch a history blog, to get my students using the internet and get them using it the right way, at least in terms of history assignments. I would also envision it as a place to re-cap a week of lessons and provide a place for a student who may have missed classes to get assignments and important information.

I think the blog can be used extremely effectively to help reinforce class instruction. It really does give you an open forum for opinion and response beyond the classroom.

Webquest 2

I have been working for what seems like weeks on the Webquest project and I think I've gotten the idea. Several times during this I began to wonder if the planning of this project is more trouble then its worth. There are definitely more conventional ways to get across the point of the lesson I am working on and while I do understand the need for integration of the Internet, I am not sure this is the best way to go about it. I have never used or planned a Webquest before and would assume that like anything, you simply need to practice at it, and eventually you will get the hang of it. As I posted earlier the hardest part of all of this has been trying to figure out what kind of assignments are actually useful in the Webquest format. Again, the toughest lesson I have had to learn is that not everything can be a Webquest. In many ways this has become rather frustrating as I did not expect to have as much trouble as I did with this just getting started. Once the assignment was setup however, the project did move rather freely and easily. I think the real key is moving beyond what is normally expected to be learned in a classroom about a given subject. It is easy to forget what is available on the internet, and really there is nothing that is not available.

Webquest

I have begun to develop a web quest for the first time. I like the idea of sending students to the Internet and hope they will be able to use it properly and learn something outside of the classroom. I also think it can be an effective tool because not only are they going to hopefully pick up something about the content assigned, but may also learn some things about the Internet as well. The biggest problem I have encountered up to this point is the ability to decide exactly what students will do. I have learned very quickly that not everything can be converted into a web quest assignment. Through some trial error it has become apparent that developing a proper web quest will have to include more then just producing an essay at the end. As a result, I think the web quest will force teachers to begin thinking outside the box (I have at least) and force educators to begin applying some non-traditional methods of instruction, which can be more effective to learning.

Internet Safety

When I think of internet safety I generally think in terms of my own safety, that is to say I have been more worried about identity theft or credit card fraud, then about meeting people or coming across objectionable material.

That being said, I was always aware that many dangers existed on the internet beyond these simple ones. Having now watched and read the materials assigned I am fearful for young people. I teach in a high school and am aware of just how naive and gullible teenagers can be. I tend to use assignments that include some internet research and now am a bit concerned. I would like to think that I am pointing my students in the right direction, but in all honesty how can I really know? The internet has apparently become a scary place. Considering the fact that it started as a place to simply share research among universities, it is amazing that it has turned into what it is. However because of what it is, it tends to encourage wrong doing on some levels. The bottom line then becomes that our kids need to have access restricted somehow and adults need to act as watchdogs. I realize my position on this is bordering on "gloom and doom" but for something this valuable, to be dangerous at all, is something I can not get past.

NJCCS/NETS

I was unaware until recently that technology standards existed. I think the move in the classroom towards technology based lessons and assignments is really the only way for our students to stay on the cutting edge of tomorrow's technology. I would personally like to see certain aspects of these technologies extended to our students at younger ages. Given the current job market and the economic climate we are facing, it is important that our students excel in as many skills as can be made available to them. Furthermore, our students really need to understand where technology is headed. In the last twenty years we have made advances beyond what most thought impossible only a generation ago, and as cliche as it sounds, we really have no limit when it come to educational tools and the future.

First Post

Welcome to my brand new blog, which I am creating for a graduate class.