12.08.08

Looking back…

Posted in Uncategorized tagged at 10:55 am by

Every time a class begins, I am always dubious that I will actually learn everything laid out in the syllabus or that I will even survive the courseload. EDTS 523 was no exception – even with Dr. Ransom’s semester countdown! But here I am, writing my last blog post for this course and I can now say that I am a bona fide blogger. I can tout about all of the other things I have learned from the past three months of class, but a huge, long list would bore you I think. :-)

I am grateful that I had the opportunity to take this course, as well as for the teaching work that I began a few short weeks before the fall semester.  As I am currently teaching ESOL, I was able to practice these new skills and apply the curriculum from this class into assignments and projects with my student in an authentic way, and isn’t that what this course is all about? Authentic instruction, not just the fancy bells and whistles?

Well, I am so happy that last Spring I decided to cut down my courseload by one class as that “extra time” allowed me to pick up a teaching job. I am an initial certification student who is sometimes a little lost when classmates and professors discuss real-world applications and school bureaucracy. I haven’t been in the school environment as an adult professional (except the field experience I did last Spring) and it’s not to say that it wouldn’t be fun to stay sheltered from the real world for a little longer, but even my tutoring job is exposing the challenges (and rewards) that are in store for me.

Confidence in my skills to learn new programs (GarageBand, VoiceThread & Inspiration) and investigate the old (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) have grown thanks to this course.  While demanding, like any other graduate class, I am sure my experiences in the GAC Apple Lab will be remembered as one of the most relevant of my graduate study.

Good luck on the final everyone and enjoy the break!

11.26.08

skeptical, but coming around

Posted in Uncategorized tagged at 1:17 pm by

While doing the readings for WebQuests I see that the intention of these programs is to provide more critical thinking as well as exposure to different aspects of the Internet.

Learning that there are certain topics that the writers don’t recommend for WebQuests makes me want to try and come up with an interesting way of presenting these topics (for example, factual information).  There has to be an interactive and alternative approach for teaching timestables and the periodic table, right? Isn’t believing the same old pedagogy needs to be applied to fact-based topics negating the revolutionary idea of WebQuests providing interactive and engaging learning formats for students and opportunities for teachers to instruct in a new way?

I like the idea of the time investment being up-front. While this would require hours of preparation while a teacher navigating this new format of instruction, there would then be a more satisfying role of being a teacher who guides and coaches the students through their learning vs. straight lecturing.  I will be interested to see what topic I end up picking for this in-class assignment and what further tools this will add to my toolbox.

11.19.08

New technologies

Posted in Uncategorized tagged , , at 9:11 pm by

How easy was that?!? I can’t believe how simple it is to create a podcast, and an enhanced one at that! I picked a topic, spoke into a microphone for 5 minutes and then tweaked and played for another 20 and suddenly I had this little mini-broadcast with music and pictures and informational audio. I was impressed with the system and with myself to be honest! My classmate had hers up on youtube before the end of class, it was all very impressive.

WebQuest is what we are looking at after Thanksgiving and based on the 35 minutes we had to look it over today, I was a little dubious. I am not sure how much I would really like to read a text-heavy WebQuest telling me what to do during a lesson.  I am sure that once I delve into the philosophy a little bit more the intentions and benefits of this software will become more apparent to me.

I am proud of my classmates as I know how much I have grown in this class, it is exciting to see what the other students have accomplished (vis-a-vis the Presentations of the non-linear PowerPoint’s today).

Kudos to everyone – and enjoy the week off!

11.13.08

Fount of creativity

Posted in Uncategorized tagged , at 9:15 pm by

Wow. Being a teacher is going to be FUN. Playing around with Garage Band and creating the non-linear PowerPoint presentation has really sparked a creative edge in me and makes me excited to enter the classroom in order to enhance student engagement and make content information more authentic. I am also excited to show off my abilities to my friends and family as I know they are digital immigrants as well and always looking for the next new toy to play with on their computers. I am excited to look into the PC podcasting programs and see what I can with them.

Follow-up from last week’s blog:

I stayed up late one night last week and unearthed some awesome podcasts and then was able to educate my students about them. After just one class, they both have found Podcasts to be valuable. One podcast that I used in instruction was the Walk of a Lifetime series by National Geographic (audio), and the other was Jamie Oliver’s cooking show (video). As one of my students is not as advanced in the English Language I used the video podcast, matching her interest in cooking with her need for visual assistance re: comprehension. She really enjoyed watching the video, she learned some great vocabulary and was evidence for me that her language skills are better than I initially thought. Thank you Web 2.0!

11.05.08

Podcasting

Posted in Uncategorized tagged , at 7:58 pm by

Once again I am blown away at the resources that are available to everyone with access to a computer and the implications that podcasting programs can have on my students.

I have an iPod but had no clue what other applications I could use with it. Now that I understand more about viewing and downloading podcasts I am excited to go home and find more programs that I will be able to use with my adult English Language Learners as well as for me and my continuing education, and interest in learning languages. Idioms of the day, news programs, language courses, vocabulary and grammar instruction are among the podcasts that I am interested in pursuing and will hopefully learn more next week about creating my own podcasts and in what ways this could spark more creativity in my instruction.

One idea that I have already is to get one of the microphones compatible with an iPod and have my student go out into the public and make short interviews. We’ll see what I can make happen, but I am excited to try and at the possibility for authentic instruction and opportunity for him to gain language confidence.

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