Vicki Davis: A Woman of Many Talents

Vicki Davis, A teacher, Blogger, Radio Host, Author, Technological Innovator, Wife, Mother, Volunteer, Speaker, Award-Winning, self-proclaimed "Country Girl," and human being.  (Where I found out all these adjectives). She is also the Edublogger who I made two comments to recently. The reason why I picked her is because she is one of the high school teachers who leads a classroom of students in AIC, a simulation course run by U of M graduate students like myself (Read more about AIC here). I work with about 15 of her students, who do some of the best work of all of the students in my simulation. As a class, we skyped Vicki a couple weeks ago to hear more about how she runs her classroom in relation to AIC. She was so enthusiastic and friendly, I was delighted to find out she also blogs regularly!

The first blog post I commented on is titled "The Right Tough and F’s in school: are we failing kids?" She wrote about how many teachers brag about failing students, and questioned if it was something to really brag about. She discusses what failure in classrooms really means, and what is doesn't mean - i.e. failing to be an A+ human being. I really identified with this post. I told her that I completely agree with the point she makes - that an F is a bullseye to give a student more attention. I stated that I truly believe we should devote our time and energy to not only changing struggling students' grades, but also their perception of themselves! She also write about how students put up walls that stop them from achieving in school. I elaborated on her idea by sharing that there are so many kinds of walls. It is so hard to get in touch with every single student and help them make little doors in their walls to let certain people through, but we continue to try. Once the breakthrough is made - success happens!

The most important part of her post, for me, was when she wrote about the support of administration and how important that is. A segment of my comment to her is below: 

"You say that you are lucky your administration has always supported you in failing students when they earn the F, and the idea that some administrations don't makes me sick! I was just talking to my mentor teacher today who stated that she would get questioned, and reprimanded for not reaching her "goal" if she failed a student whose parent pulled them out of the school, but didn't "officially" disenroll the student, so they were being counted as "absent" and their assignments were "missing." She said that F would be looked at just as any other kid who is just skipping school, or coming and not paying attention. I can't imagine that a teacher would be in trouble for things like that. It makes me so sad!"

I ended with a few questions for her: How do you tell the difference between someone who won’t let you help and someone who just takes time? How long do you pursue them in this case? I asked because in my ideal future, I will never stop pursuing a student even if they act like help is the last thing I can give them. However, I know how frustrating and discouraging that must be. 

I love that she writes about things that are applicable to all teachers, regardless of the "content area." As Maria Coolican always says, "You don't teach French, Science, or Math. You teach kids." I can see that shining through in Vicki's blog.

The second post I commented on was one about enjoying the silence of the morning and being alone. This was so important to me because I am so caught up in all of the work I am doing in and outside of school. In undergrad, I often forgot to take time for myself. I have gotten much better at this during grad school (when I have less time to give up, of course), but now I often feel guilty about it. Vicki's post made me realize how important and essential this time is to leading a happy and (mentally) healthy life. 

I haven't heard back from her yet, but part of that is my fault. I didn't realize she moved her site to a new address, and I commented on the Failure post at the old address. I copied on to the same post at her new address so hopefully she will be able to find it and reply. I will comment back on this post when and if she does! 

I have subscribed to her blog in order to see when she updates it, and I plan on checking back on it regularly. She truly is an inspiration and I encourage you to check out her site. Let me know if you find any intriguing posts (how could you not?) and what your thoughts are! 

In case you're interested, her twitter handle is @coolcatteacher :) Have Fun and a Good Holiday Break, everyone!

FaKeBoOk

      In an age where students are excited by, and distracted by, any type of social media, it can seem hard to reach them. Teachers employ many strategies, including bad jokes and "cool" band t-shirts, in order to try and get in touch with their students. Much to their dismay, this doesn't always work. I had a student tell me he didn't like his math teacher because she didn't "GET him." Upon further investigation on that point, he said "She doesn't talk about anything besides the math. She doesn't connect to my life at all. I don't want help from her because she doesn't connect with me." While that made me sad, it also opened my eyes. These teachers, though they are failing, are at least TRYING to connect with their students, which is so important. Luckily, I was presented with an ingenious tool called Fakebook which would not only let teachers attempt to integrate course material with students lives, but help them succeed!
      Small anecdote....Senior year of college I took a French creative writing class. I loved everything about it because it allowed me to use my French in ways that allowed me to be crafty and allowed me to write about things that were interesting to ME! We turned in a writing piece every class period, three times per week, for the entire semester (that's a lot), and I can count on one hand the number of times a certain subject was required. The rest of the time, we wrote about whatever we wanted, as long as we implemented a certain grammatical structure we had just learned. Shoutout to Prof. George Hoffmann for making this class ROCK.
      Anyway, one of our assignments was that we had to make a Facebook page for a person of our choice - book character, celebrity, movie character, etc. They were all shared with the class on the big screen so the pressure was ON. The product of my efforts is below....
   

     You probably can't tell, but I slaved away on this piece of art. I couldn't make it in microsoft word because it was too hard to add all the little graphics. What graphics you see? Oh, well every little "like" thumb, relationship heart, location stamp, calendar date, or picture, was a screenshot taken from the one and only real facebook. I had to copy and paste them into whatever program I used so as you can imagine, formatting was a NIGHTMARE. I ended up doing it in Powerpoint and had to make three different slides because it wouldn't all fit on one. Oh yeah, and that blue and bold type-face? By hand. As you can imagine, I wasn't upset about all this work in the least since I loved the class so much. Additionally, when I finished, I was super excited to have my work and dislike of Taylor Swift's recycle-dating-program projected onto the big screen.

      HOWEVER. What if I didn't like the class this much? What if I didn't care about the teacher or the assignments and I didn't want to put that much effort in? Doing this and coming up with even a decent project would be beyond the scope of things.... Until FAKEBOOK. With fakebook, you can make a facebook account that is more complete and better looking than the one I created myself with less than half the time! I even went ahead and did it for you - go on - It's much better - just click it - Make sure you check out the L-side bar - 

CHECK IT OUT!

        In total, it took me 20 minutes to create that. Okay, maybe 25. That is nothing compared to how much time I spent on the first one - and it looks better!! 

     Obviously, my reactions to the presentation were many and they were all very excited and very happy. I think this is a fun thing to do which can be incorporated into many disciplines. Personally, I think I will definitely use this with my students in the future. Possibly in the way I learned it, to try out new grammatical structures. I like this idea because I can TAYLOR (Spelled wrong on purpose - get it? get it?) it to my students needs. For instance, first year French students would only write in present tense. Second year could do this switching between present and past tense based on when she posted the update. Third year can switch between the two different types of past tenses which often confuse students to no end. Fourth year and AP can use past, present, and future! It is a great way to assign the same assignment but change it based on skill. Another way to use this would be to document French culture or French history. For instance, Students could make a page for the European Union that goes through the timeline of history of when countries joined, when currency changed etc. Or, Students could make a facebook for a special French holiday - such as bastille day - that dictates what would happen in the preparation of and throughout that day. 

     Even though I had created my "fake" facebook before, I didn't think I would consider it for high school students simply because of the required workload. Now, however, it is much easier and  I will DEFINITELY let my students do this for homework - notice I said "let" not "make" because it really is that much of a treat. 

     Let me know your thoughts! Would you use it? For what discipline? How? What differences did you notice between my first and second fake facebooks? 

Technology as the Classroom

     For my blog of choice, I would like to tell everyone about the cognate class I am involved in this semester. Primarily, I was intrigued by this course because of the topic of content. It is a course on the Arab-Israeli Conflict (AIC). As I grew up going to a private Jewish school, I thought I would be extremely well-versed on this topic but I acknowledged that there would be areas in which my knowledge would be lacking. To my surprise, I was lacking an EXTREME amount of knowledge and I was shocked at how little I actually knew. So far, this course has opened my mind to new thoughts and emotions regarding this conflict, because I have been enlightened by new knowledge and points of view. I realized I had previously held very biased beliefs, and I am thrilled to find out that I feel like I am understanding "the whole story."

     I don't think this feeling of relief would come if AIC were a typical class. If I were to sit in a classroom for 3 hours a week being lectured on various historical events, different points of view, and sometimes engaged in debates, I think I would find myself even more deeply embedded in my biased views and feelings. However, this is not a typical class. I do not get lectured for three hours a week. In the beginning, I had to do a lot of reading and research to make sure I was on top of my knowledge. Once I crossed the very beginning of that long bridge of knowledge, which would take the entirety of my life to completely sort out, I entered the world of classroom simulation.

     AIC is a class where graduate students at the University of Michigan partner with high school and middle school classrooms from all over the country (and Canada) to engage in a simulation to deeper the knowledge and understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict for all students involved. Students are each given the role of a diplomat to "act in" for the remainder of the semester. There are 18 countries per "world" with up to five members acting for one country (3 diplomats and 2 overseeing governmental figures). Graduate students are paired together, and each pair govern a world. The pair of graduate students act as the NSA, Game Mentor, and Ban Ki-Moon for their world of diplomats.

     First, diplomats are required to complete a Strategic Goals Statement (SGS) for their country to be edited with and approved by the NSA, or in this case, me. The SGS will note a countries main goals, countries of importance to goals, and unwanted outcomes for the duration of the game. Once approved, diplomats can begin to interact with diplomats of other countries. In some cases, those diplomats may be their best friend who shares a classroom with them. In other cases, those diplomats may be unknown students who live across the country. These diplomats can communicate by way of private message. Just last week, I found a private message from Fatah to Hamas titled "Happy To Be Bros." ... Obviously, some students are still learning the premise of the simulation. Diplomats are also encouraged to write press releases, which once approved are visible by all other diplomats, and action forms. An action form details what the problem the country would like to act on is, and four actions the country could take to solve that problem (invasion of another country, impeachment of an officer, UN vote, etc.). Once the action form is submitted, the game mentor chooses one of the provided four actions, and makes it happen.

     Nothing is, however, as it seems. A country could call for a vote to the UN and end up with a giant backlash of an UN vote failure and shame smeared across the media. Each week, the game mentor sends out an "in the news" update (which summarizes three press releases published that week) and sometimes a "news flash" update (which lets diplomats know when an action has been taken). These updates are written from a slanted media angle, which examines what a diplomat was thinking when they wrote certain things, and sometimes accuses diplomats of certain ways of thinking that may never have crossed their mind though they are consistent with the press release.

     Needless to say, this is one of the most unique classes, both for the high school/middle school students and myself. As a future teacher, I love knowing that I am having an impact on the learning taking place in classrooms right now! I think this class is a great way for students to get involved with real-world events, while interacting with others and using technology. Students have already become very active within our world, and I can tell that things are just cooking up. I would love to hear responses from other classmates who are involved in AIC or the oddysey simulation course (i think?) to hear about your experiences so far. If you are not in one of these courses, please reply back with your initial thoughts/comments and/or questions and I would love to read them and get back to you.

As always, neither my AIC class nor this blog would be possible without the help of a wonderful faculty member, Jeff Stanzler. So happy to be in two of your classes this term. Thank you for teaching me about technology, teaching, and the world at large! Happy to be bros.

Tech. in My Placement

     Back in the day, I had to walk three miles to school in the snow without any gloves or shoes on - you have nothing to complain about! This was the message I heard when I (often) complained to my parents/grandparents about going to school. Now, I would like to relay this same message to current high schoolers but change the message a little. In my mind it would go something like this:

"Back in my day, the only technology my teachers had were overhead projectors that could only function with laminates!"

     Though 2009 doesn't seem like too long ago, returning to high school twice a week seems like I am returning to an entirely different world than the one I left five years ago. While I know powerpoint existed during these four years, even that was hardly used in my classrooms. I truly only remember teachers using laminates as their form of technology integration, if any. At the point, using a whiteboard was considered technologically advanced, and many of my teachers wrote elaborate notes before school on their boards and kept them on there throughout the day.

        I am currently a teaching intern at Salem High School which is one of three high schools in the Plymouth-Canton Educational Park. With a student population of 6,000+, the Park is striving to become a leader in technological innovation in the classroom. In all of the classrooms I have been in, the teachers have utilized multiple forms of technology throughout their lesson. Teachers still use powerpoint, but some also use prezi, quizlet, conjugaimos, or polleverywhere. Both of my mentor teachers assign repetitions on quizlet or conjugaimos for homework to help students learn their new vocabulary/grammatical structures. Classes are often taken to the computer lab (There are 4 in Salem in alone) in order to work during class-time. If the computer lab is not available, or teachers want to stay in their classroom, it is possible for teachers to rent the iPad cart, and gain a full class set of iPads throughout the day. If something happens to go technologically wrong, have no fear, for a tech expert is available in each school throughout the park. 

     Perhaps more interesting than individual teachers efforts to include technology into the curriculum is the district effort to do so. Currently, teachers have a mix of different TVs, projectors, and smartboards. Coming within the next few years, every teacher will have a large, flatscreen, interactive TV in their room. This functions like a smartboard, but is portable. Teachers were shown some of the main features of this new TV during professional development in August. Additionally, the distract got a grant to fund a google chromebook for every student at the park. By the end of this year, all freshman will have a chromebook, and incoming grades will get them for the next three years until everyone in the school has one available to them. The district is doing this in an effort to give each student equal access to technology, and to have a one-to-one initiative in each classroom.

     While I think this is a fantastic idea to work towards, there are many implications of these new technology devices and not all of them are positive. Beginning with the TV... Many teachers at the park received smartboards about five years ago. They were installed in the rooms and teachers were told they would be trained on them soon. Five years later, the "soon" never came. Many teachers figured out how to use their smartboards with advice from friends, colleagues, and google, but many are still unsure. Of those who have figured out how to use the smartboard, they admit that there are features they do not know how to use and if they did, they would use them within the class. This is part of the problem I forsee happening with the TVs. The "training" teachers received at professional development lasted about 15 minutes, and teachers were not able to play with it themselves, only see a demo. I feel that these TVs could be so great within the classroom, but will not be very beneficial if teachers are unsure how to use them. Also, their sheer size is a bit intimidating. As of right now, there are about 35 students crammed into every class with hardly any wiggle room. A portable large device like this will need somewhere to live in the classroom and I'm unsure where that will be. 

     Moving on to the chromebooks. I feel that giving every student a notebook with internet access is a great way to increase the equity within schools. Additionally, I feel that it is necessary in this school district. World language classes only have one set of textbooks per classroom teacher. This means that no student has a copy at their home. If there is homework or reading in the textbook, or even if a student wants to review what they have learned, they need to log-on to the online textbook. For a student without a computer, this is not possible. This issue will be resolved with chromebooks, and assigning bookwork for homework will be more accessible for world language teachers. However, and there is always a however, these chromebooks only work with internet access. The entire computer is a web browser and without internet the thing is basically obsolete. A student can't even type a paper in microsoft word type document without internet on the computer. For the student whose family can't afford a computer, my bet is they can not afford internet either. Yes, that student could go to a library or coffee shop that has free wifi, but is that really the message we want to send to students? Is it safe for students to be at places like McDonalds late into the evening to accomplish their homework? Some of these students may be freshman who would have to walk home afterwards. While I think that these computers will really help under-priviledged students, I see the downfalls of this system as well. 

     Lastly, since the district knows that their entire student/teacher population will soon have google chromebooks, which utilize wireless internet, the district has not upgraded the bandwidth on its "normal" (non-wifi) internet. Teachers who want to utilize their smartboards to project internet sites like polleverywhere or youtube must use the school computer which uses "normal" internet because of the cable connector. At this point, the non-wifi internet speed is so slow it is almost non-functional. Since it will be nearly four years until all students have chromebooks, and all teachers have portable TV/smartboards in their rooms, this problem will continue to get worse and worse. While I see that the future may hold a bright light and hope for new possibilities, I wonder how much damage that will do in the present.

     I feel lucky to teach in a district that is dedicated to technological advancement, I just wonder how much thought was put into these new tools aside from "YAY! COOL! NEW TOOLS!" This thought exists when I look at many districts, and I worry about the danger of the appeal of new tools vs. the reality of how they will actually function.

Fall is back

                  Happy fall! Welcome back to school! I am excited to be back in school and think of all the possibilities of what could happen in this academic year. I am pumped up to be inside the field and sometimes outside of my comfort zone. I can't wait to learn about new things happening in education as a whole and educational impacts being made in individual schools. I am very happy to hear about the technology advancements being made throughout our field, but also have some concerns about them.

                   I had the pleasure of hearing a talk by Peter Pasque who is the Google integrationist for staff and students at Skyline High School. The faculty truly dedicated themselves to a new technology initiative when they created the school not too long ago. The curriculum is based around google integration and Student Learning Networks. Each student at Skyline is required to create their own webpage which will digitally contain all of their school work. Education is changing as we know it - excuses like 'my dog ate my homework' won't work anymore because there is always a digital copy readily available. Another perk to this initiative is that the students are the owners of their work - they choose when their instructors can access and edit it, and they choose when to revoke those privileges. They are the boss of their site. Additionally, the students have a digital reference library of the work they created throughout high school for access in the future. If they ever want to put all of their work on a resume, it is already all put together. I really love the idea of organizing our students online lives, and doing it in a way that benefits both them and their teachers.

                   While all of this is great and fun, I still see cracks where disadvantaged students are likely to fall. Yes, it is great that every student has to put their work online in order to organize it, but what about the student that does not have internet access or a computer at home? It is not easy for him to have access to the same about of flexibility and creativity when creating this online portfolio, as it is for other, more advantaged students. Will it benefit this student after they graduate? Will they be rushing to the library to remember the organization and papers they wrote for English 9? I don't think so.

**If you want to check out more information on the Skyline technology initiative, you can get it here. 

                  Perhaps a one-to-one technology initiative would be more beneficial, one might think. If each kid could just get a device that worked, maybe then the equity piece would be less glaring. Unfortunately, it's not that easy. The school district in which I am student teaching was lucky enough to receive a grant to help them fund a one-to-one program. All teachers have already received school-assigned chromebooks, and students will begin to receive them in January. By the end of the academic year, in June 2014, all students will have a chromebook assigned to them. Great! Solves the problem, right? Nope. Google chromebooks are unique in the fact that they do not have a hard drive. When it is turned on, there are no programs to install and get fired up. It simply starts up in a matter of seconds. It is light, and it will never have 0% of space left. "How is this possible?" you might ask. Well, the chromebook is essentially a browser. All it has on it is google chrome. The owner is expected to use google apps to complete all of their work - google docs, excel sheets, presentation (their version of powerpoint), etc. This would be okay if the students had internet! I don't think the student without access to a computer would have access to internet readily available. Without internet access, the chromebook is completely useless which furthers the equity problem.

                    Lastly, I will raise an issue I find with both the Skyline initiative and the one at my student-teaching high school. Some may call me crazy, others may think I am a cynic, and I don't know if I disagree with either of those allegations  However, I seem to find a problem with the fact that both programs require the students giving their information to google. I know that technology is growing, and soon no one will have any privacy due to internet, but ti still irks me that kids who are not allowed to vote, not allowed to choose whether or not they go to school, and sometimes not even allowed to drive yet, by the law, are being forced to give their personal information to a company that has been accused of selling user information. I think that if a student is going to choose to put all of their personal information on the internet, then they should have that choice. However, I do not see how a student who did not want to do so would get around either of these policies.

                      I realize no system can be perfect, especially when it is, like technology integration is, so new. I understand that high schools are doing their best to fill the needs of their students and provide the best learning environment for today's society and culture, but I think there are major problems associated with the current "solutions." Still, I love hearing about the different ways different schools choose to go about this, and for that reason, I am thrilled I was able to interact with Peter Pasque.

GAMES!

     I love games! I think this much was evidenced during our activity today. As I don't usually win things, and I consider my name getting pulled winning, I was shocked and excited to be able to be a "participant" in the game. I call the radio often for concert tickets and I just never get through. This was as fortunate as winning the lottery for me! It was doubly exciting because Cory had predicted I would get picked about 3 seconds before my name was pulled. He then predicted that Andrew would get picked about 3 seconds before his name was pulled. I think Cory should buy a lottery ticket. Back to the point...
     Once I was seated at the table, I found it hard to concentrate on the directions after about five second. I realize I am an antsy person and am self-diagnosed with ADHD but I never notice the effects of this as much as when I am extremely excited. Once I sat down in the seat and had the envelope in front of me, that envelope was all I could think about. Did the directions Jeff was giving matter? Yes, most definitely, as it changed how I would/should play the game. Still, I found it extremely hard, if not impossible, to concentrate on what he was saying. I felt just like the children in the Stanford marshmallow experiment. If you need a specific visual, check out 1:44 and 2:26.

   
     Once Jeff let me open the envelope, 3:07 embodies what I felt like. Additionally, I was especially enthralled by this because it reminded me of Top Chef and if anyone is addicted to cooking shows - its me. On one episode of Top Chef, they had the contestants come in and stand on one side of a curtain. On the other side of the curtain, which had the same food and utensils, they had an assistant that they may or may not have known. The challenge was to create the same dish, from the taste down to the appearance of it. It ended up being a loved one, which the contestants realized after they heard the contestant speak, and it made them that much more emotional about completing the task. I was thrilled to be a part of something that resembled people I watch on TV!
     I would love to do something like this in my classroom. As we talked about a bit in class, there are many ways to make this into a world language course. One idea I had was for it to be a multi-level activity where there are four people on each team and multiple teams in a classroom. On each team, two people are working together to put the puzzle together, and two are observers. To complete the level, you need to complete the puzzle, but that's not all. The puzzle will either have an action or a concept in it. In order to complete the level, one must assemble the puzzle AND identify the action/concept. For instance, if there was a picture of someone getting a haircut, the student would be expected to identify an action in that paragraph, such as cutting. This would tie it in to any vocabulary section we had been focusing on. Another idea would be to have it be a concept, such as this one:

The student pair would be expected to put the picture together and identify that it is "Bastille day" which is basically the equivalent of the American 4th of July. Once the level is completed, the pairs switch and the players are now the observers. Both groups need to complete their level in order to "win." We could have multiple games going on at the same time possibly but I have not worked it out yet.
       Another idea to make it more complicated stems off of an idea someone brought up in class. Someone thought about having just one person move the pieces and the other direct them. I would like to take it a step further and blindfold the person that is being directed. I really think this game teaches teamwork and reliance on others, as well as creativity and cognitive thinking and problem-solving. I had so much fun participating, and doing this blog, and can't wait for fall semester!! Tata for now,

Mon inspiration!

     Marie-France Perkins. What a great lady. Have you ever met someone, virtually or in real life, and wonder what you would have done without meeting them? Immediately, they captivate and inspire you, and definitely make you smile. This is how I feel about Marie-France Perkins and with a bit more time of researching her and practicing her methods, I thing these feelings will grow stronger! This is what she looks like, the lovely lady I can not get enough of:

     Initially, I was captivated by her blog because it began all in French. I felt as if this was a secret world that only people with the skills to enter it and gain knowledge from it were allowed into. Without trying to sound like a self-absorbed Frenchie, it excited me. Delving deeper into it I wanted to find out more about her. Because I could not find this information on her blog, I had to do some research.

      From her twitter page, (https://twitter.com/MarieFrance) I can see that she is a the head of an MFL school in the beautiful city of Bath (England I believe) who loves teaching and ICT. If you're anything like me, you get stressed out from acronyms you are not familiar with. I, as a French major, could guess that MFL means Modern Foreign Languages. I was lost at ICT, though. It turns out, it means Information and Communications Technologies - which makes sense since she is a blogger. Reading her lessons, I was interested to see if she had any videos of her using them. Unsurprisingly, for me at least since she is a lover of ICT, I found her youtube account. She has six videos and all of them look as if they were filmed within 1 second of each other and capture the same thing:

    While these adorable videos of a new litter of puppies was anything but disappointing, it was not what I was looking for. Additionally, mademoiselle Perkins also has accounts on LinkedIn, PodOmatic, Pinterest, Diigo, Slideshare, Classroom 2.0, Prezi, Docstoc, and three additional blogs (Amazing how much you can find out about someone on the internet, right?) 

    Down to the nitty gritty - her blog. It is extremely interesting and insightful. She provides resources to teachers that are categorized so one can find exactly what they need. She has been blogging at this site since October 2007 and continues to blog regularly. Her most recent blog post is about Mr. Bean, who was one of my favorite characters from French videos in high school. It is a silent clip that I would find somewhat difficult to incorporate into a lesson without her advice. 

     I think this video is perfect for students because it is hilarious. Mlle Perkins suggests having students try to decipher verbs like to go, to take, to cut, to put butter on, to open, etc. by watching the clip. She has a sample worksheet to go with it to help structure their thoughts. Additionally, I am enthralled with her next blog post which involves students creating their own videos online and recording voice-overs to demonstrate their french speaking abilities. I love this because I can tell she is spreading her love of technology over to her students. Additionally, this allows her to assess their speaking abilities without putting them on the spot and also while giving them time to revise/edit their clips. 

     In a more general sense, this blog is extremely useful because of the links on either side of it. She has categories on the right side, such as "music," "food," and "film" that will take you to a page with all of the blog posts she has completed on those topics. You can also select them by grade. Below this, she has podcasts where someone can listen to her instruct a lesson. Below this she has vocab words that can be pronounced in a language of your choice by the computer while the spelling appears in front of you. On the left side of her blog, she includes links to other sites that may help you for various reasons. She also has the option to translate her blog into a different language so that it is accessible to more people. In terms of her current audience, the UK has the most viewers followed by the US and then by France. 

     I am so glad I had the chance to review her blog because I feel that it may really come in handy to me in the future. I was so sad when I realized world languages were not accessible of goorulearning but now I have a site that will provide me with the same experience!

     If you are interesting in World Languages, or specifically, le francais, check out her blog here. I had a great time learning from her and hope you will too!

Welcome to Academia: What Starts with School ends with Success

     Captivated by Rory's idea about structuring an academic year as a video game, I created the following brochure as a pitch for students interested in attending a school structured in this way:

While this school isn't yet possible... Once it is, I know there will be no students asking what the meme below is:

Pictionary Pleasure

     If your family was anything like mine, game nights were the highlight of your week. And lucky for you, they happened multiple times per week. Games were so vital in my childhood and adolescence and still are in my adulthood. As much as I liked game night at home, I especially liked it at school. One of my favorite games to play at home was Pictionary, and I was extremely interested in how I could use Pictionary in my teaching methods.
     If the class has vocabulary necessary for the curriculum, which I think most classes do, Pictionary is a great way to get students to learn the words. The ordinary Pictionary cards can be subbed out for those associated with class. The words can be those from vocab lists and the categories can be changed to accommodate different categories within the classroom (verbs, adjectives, place, people, etc.) The cards can be added on to throughout the year so that the students are receiving a cumulative review each time they play.
     This could be especially useful in foreign language classes such as my future class. I can use vocabulary, as previously stated, to get students to learn new french words. However, I can also include other things on these cards to help them understand course content. For instance, concepts such as holidays and french foods can be put on cards for students to draw. If the card says "Bastille day" the student would have to draw a military parade, the champs-elysees, and fireworks to get the other team to guess which holiday it was. This will help students learn what traditions are associated with what events. For the foods, if I were to write "Croque monsieur" on a card, which is a traditional french dish served in cafés, the student would have to draw bread+cheese+ham and potentially coffee to get the other student to guess which food it was. Another dimension could be added to this if the student drew where the food originated from in france (drawing the region of france).
     Another idea is to keep tis game completely unrelated to course content. I think games are important regardless of their "academic content." Pictionary, no matter the content, will require to students to take their knowledge and put it down on paper in the form of a creative drawing. This will challenge their brains as they try and figure out a concept that may be easy to describe with words but hard to convey in a picture. Additionally, students will have to work together. The teams will need to work together to figure out what is being drawn and make educated guesses. Pictionary also teaches the value of time. When it is imperative to accomplish a task before a specified amount of time runs out, the students learn how to work quickly yet effectively under the pressure. Playing hte game without "academic content" will allow students to "de-stress" their brains. Being in school for 7 hours a day is cognitively tiring especially when one is just transitioning from subject to subject without any real mental break in between. This is a way to give students the release they need before reeling them back in for content related course work.
       Yes, I realize Pictionary is "old-school" and there are new games that could be used like apps, computer games, video games, etc. However, I think there is a certain joy and humility is going back to the basics. The basics allow students to escape the technology that is constantly involved in their lives, and interact with other humans and a pad of paper for a little while.

The benefit of playing

     I love how we started our last ED 504 class. "20 Questions" has always been one of my favorites. Playing it with friends, playing it on a long hiking trip, or playing it in class has always been entertaining and rewarding...when you get the answer. This game was given with a set of directions I had never had before. The ability for the person with the pen to lie... twice! And to not tell when they lied! Wow. If I ever had a chance of getting the answer right before, I would never get it now. Even still, I had fun with my peers guessing which questions were valuable enough to ask.
     This reminded me of my times in AP World History in high school. Every day, my teacher started the class out with "Sponge." This wasn't something in specific, but something that would work our cognitive skills outside of the traditional "academic" domain we are stuck in most of the day. Sometimes this included Boggle or Pictionary, but other innovative games as well such as putting up a picture with inverted colors of a persons face and having everyone guess who it was. I would have loved this game had it just been what it was. But perhaps the better part about it was that we got something in return for doing well in Sponge! If we won/scored in the top three we got a coupon. You could choose which coupon you wanted out of 1 day late pass for homework, 1 free quiz hint, or 5 extra points on something.
     This idea of using games in the classroom reminds me a bit of the Tools framework developed for kindergarten classrooms. It seems crazy to connect the two age groups that are farthest apart from each other but it really has to do with play and how it helps development. Students are allowed to depart from academics and excel in play. Cognitive skills are worked and explored, so students are building their brains and getting ready for academic classwork without even realizing it. To the student, it seems like they are having fun with their friends and building a stronger aspect of community in the classroom. It is a win-win for both teacher and student. For these reasons I am extremely excited to test out a video game and learn how to use it in the classroom next week! :)

(Technical) Difficulties with my (Online) Life

     When we got the "Organizing your Online Life" assignment I was extremely excited! I was assigned something I had never used before and was really excited to learn how to use it and possibly incorporate it into my every day life! I noticed Matt using "Evernote," my assigned application, in class a few days before the assignment was given, so I was sure it had practical uses.
     As excited as I was, however, I had many other assignments and responsibilities in between the time it was assigned and the time it was due. I knew I had a lot to do this week, so I spread out all of the work in my free time and finished the bulk of the assignment a few days early like any other responsible adult. SIKE. I did not do it early. Yes, I explored the website and downloaded the application, taking 20 screenshots along the way, but did I actually attempt to learn how to use it until the night before? NO! Of course not! What kind of college student would I be if I did that!? In reality, I wish I could have done it before. I really was excited about it and I had letting stress build on me. However, there is just so much work in this program and worrying about what needs to be done the next day, that there is mostly a one-day turn-around period.
     Anyway, the time had finally come where I could do my "fun home-work" of the night and make my hand-out for Evernote. I love creating scrapbooks, and collages so I figured I would love to make this hand-out. However, when it started to go bad, I should have kept my chin up, because after that it was about to go really bad. I started out using Microsoft Word, the ideal and most boring program to do just about any assignment necessary. It was going alright for a while. I inserted two screenshots, had a fancy heading, the whole shebang. I inserted my third screenshot, one of the big ones, and it would not resize. I drag-and-dropped the bottom right-hand corner until I was just banging on the computer asking it "Why won't you work!" I "quit" Microsoft Word. I opened it and tried again, nothing. I restarted the computer, nothing. I googled it. I read five different forum posts about what to do when your drag-and-drop feature starts working. I shut off my computer, took out the battery, waited a couple minutes (Okay maybe it was less than one) and started it up again. Couldn't do it. I had this conversation with my friend in Australia.

 I did software updates. I ran a software to fix any technical problems and restart the programs that had any bugs. I did everything to believe that the problem could be fixed by myself and a number of other "friends" online. I could not just sit and believe that my trackpad would have to be replaced, as Veronica so graciously pointed out.   I know this seems like a lot for the drag and drop feature but as my status read, such a small thing can cause such a huge problem. You can't move windows, resize them, drag pictures into a document, resize them, move arrows or circle around a document or resize them, etc.
     If you don't already know, I am not the type of person that will just not turn an assignment in due to "technical difficulties." I set an alarm for 4:30, double-checked the UGLI hours, and went to bed. Waking up this morning was not as bad as one would expect, but I will let you know how I feel after working with hormonal and quick-tempered 10 year olds for four hours. In the end, after running from my front door to my car so that no kid-nappers could get me when it is pitch black outside and Ann Arbor is sleeping, running from my car to the library amidst the dead silence of what is soon to be a 90 degree stampede at Art fair, getting locked out of the UGLI for 20 minutes because the secretary couldn't see me banging on the windows and because I didn't know how to use the card swiper, attempting to use my previously (and still currently) least favorite program of ALL TIME (Textedit) and failing, and attempting again with pages and succeeding, I feel content. The daily struggles of a semi-native, semi-immigrant student just trying to get by in the world of technology.

Skype me Healthy

     In Rachel's class we are discussing routines. Routines should be developed for activities that take a long time and happen frequently. When coming up with examples for what type of things should have routines, we addressed student absence as one of those things. Each day, teachers deal with students in each of their classes being absent for various reasons. These reasons range from illness or death in the family to a student taking a personal day for shopping or manicures.
     Whatever the reason, however, the result in the classroom is the same. The student misses the material one day, returns the next, and is expected to carry on with the class in new material. Either the student is filled in by the teacher or a friend, or just goes on without ever learning what was addressed in class. Eventually, this takes a toll on the teacher, the student, and the other students in class. No classroom wants to hear material they covered yesterday a second time, and no teacher wants to teach it a second time (Teaching it to three classes in one day is enough, but doing all that again a second time? No, thanks). However, the student, in many cases, can't move on without learning the material.
     So, what do we do? Eradicate absences! ... Nope, that won't work. The only other things that comes to mind is to create a routine, right? That is the solution. Come up with a way for the teacher, student, and class to adjust to absences in a way that treats all students equally and ensures the absentee learns what they have missed without inhibiting all other's progress forward by taking them on a stroll down memory lane. Does it work? Yes, assuming the routine is beneficial. But what if there was a better solution? What if there was a way to get the student in the classroom without actually being in the classroom?
     Liiiiiiightbuuuuuuulb (Another great piece of technology which is said with the echo of Gru from Despicable Me repeating in my head).  There is a way to accomplish this - Skype! I am proud to say I have been the student on the other side of the computer screen, feeling as though I am part of the class while still enjoying the comfort of my own bed and air conditioner blasting full force on my feverish forehead. While I am not sure how Rory felt when he attempted to hand packets to a face on a computer screen, I can tell you how grateful I was to have this experience. All papers distributed in class were accessible online and I was able to hear the lecture, watch the video, and see the notes written by the teacher while keeping the class healthy and free of strep throat and tonsillitis. In fact, it turned out that I understood the assignment discussed in class better than a few who were actually present!
     While I do think Skype is an extremely helpful way of using technology in the classroom, I realize my blog started to sound startlingly familiar. "Get the education you need while reaping the benefits of learning in your own home! Learn on your own time! Get your degree online from X University." While I am in no way advocating that personal relationships be sacrificed in return for comfort, I see the benefits of this technology. Evidently, however, I also see the dangers. For this reason, I am so excited to start the "Organizing your Online Life" assignment. I can not wait to see how technology programs other than Microsoft word, Refworks, and Powerpoint can help excel and organize my education.

Do the Dew(ey).

          We've all been there. We've all had THAT teacher. Yep, you know the one...well sadly, the many. When you slowly peeked inside your schedule for the coming year ... praying ... you didn't see the one name ... of the teacher ... that your friend had last year because ... she was just too ... DRATS. WHY DO I HAVE HER? Yep, that teacher. Dewey gave me a little more insight as to what makes someone "that" teacher and why they are so unpopular both in student-teacher relations and instruction.
          He writes "There is a present tendency in so-called advanced schools of educational thought to say, in effect, let us surround pupils with certain materials, tools, appliances, etc., and let pupils respond to these things according to their own desires. Above all let us not suggest any end or plan to students," (Dewey, 1929). And though he wrote this a little shy of a century ago (scary right? I still think ten years ago was 1995) this tendency is still in practice! In my opinion, it is not as strongly skewed as he suggests - I have never attended a class where the teacher had absolutely no plan - but it definitely still exists. These teachers take on the role of the provider, but not in the sense that would evoke a positive connotation in this context. They are not providing leads, prompts, creative outlets, or critical thinking tactics, but merely tools. It would be like if you hired a plumber to come and fix your toilet, but when he got there he handed you the tools and waited for you to figure it out... and then expected you to hand him a check! Students can not use tools if they don't know how, why, and when to apply them. Moreover, they definitely can not tailor these tools to fit their individual needs if they don't even know how the tool functions for the general population! I am in accord with Dewey and find this method "really stupid" (Dewey, 1929).
          In fact, I have always found it stupid. My high school physics teacher, Mr. Rox*, was a big believer in this method. Having succeeded in multiple accelerated math classes and an engineer for a father, I thought I would be a physics-loving, equation-computing student, rollin' through my homework at 9.8 m/s squared ... and I was geeked about it. Sadly, I was wrong...I was so, so wrong. It turned out physics was "not my thing." I did not love it and I definitely did not roll through my homework, even at a slow rate. I came out of class constantly feeling discouraged and angry. No matter how hard I tried, it didn't make sense to me. At that moment, I didn't think the method was stupid, I thought I was.
          Reflecting on it now, however, I think I may have had a better shot if someone interested in Dewey had been my teacher. I realize that I was handed the tools and expected to use them without actually being guided through the material. Each wrong answer stung a little bit worse when accompanied by the ever-present condescending "This is easy!" chant, echoing off each of the four walls until it drown out in reality but continued repeating on and on between my ears. Each time I saw "PHYSICS ROX!" at the end of every test, an eye-roll escaped me for I did not think that physics, or Mr. Rox, rocked. I can now look back on this experience with less haste, more understanding, and more self-confidence as I realize why physics "wasn't my thing" and why Mr. Rox qualified as "that" teacher.
         Dewey doesn't just shed light on what methods are ineffective. He also leaves me with an idea that I know and believe, but that I think gets let go of too easily between the words competitive, standards, and high-stakes testing. There are three main elements of education: school, society, and children (55). These should be our goals. These should be our focus. These should be our motive. These three elements work as a cohesive unit, each to benefit and better the others. Often, I believe we  forget the most simple things. School is important. Society is important. The children are important.  They deserve better than "Here are the tools, figure out how to use them." They deserve better than "I think this rocks so you should too." And they definitely deserve better than "This is easy!" This is our responsibility as teachers.


*Name has been changed to protect confidentiality - but the part about it being a verb applies

Dependence or Independence?

          Technology. In my mind, this word seems to start small and keep growing and growing until it erupts with an explosion of sparkly megapixels in assorted colors, not so different from the fireworks detonating in the skies of our country tonight. I'm not quite sure if this is simply because I am a product of the 20th century, or because I have a love/hate relationship with anxiety-producing crime television but this idea evokes so many different emotions in me. My generation is basically Pavlov-ified to salivate when we hear, read, or imagine the word and its possibilities...technology. However, I don't need to watch one more episode of CSI to believe how real and unpredictable the dangers of high-tech gadgets can be.
          As a 10-year old, my obsession with technology seemed to be reaching an all-time high, though the use of it in my well-to-do private school remained surprisingly stagnant. I remember  asking  begging my father, day in and day out, to buy AOL so I could use the instant messaging features to talk to my friends. Surprisingly, my father didn't see the value in paying more for an internet service that provided less for the purpose of chatting online with people who I last saw an hour before. His inability to understand the requirements of my 5th grade social life annoyed me to no end. You can imagine how delighted I was when AIM, the instant messaging feature of AOL, launched a free version with the same capabilities. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. I could finally be accepted into a cyber-world that allowed me to exchange various acronyms with my super-hot crush without the blush on my face sliding off and leaking through my computer monitor....lol.  Fast-forward a few years, and I remember the days I spent hours searching www.homestarrunner.com until I found my "new-favorite" episode of Teen Girl Squad I had been impatiently waiting to show my best friend. Again, my excitement peaked when something was invented to do-away with all of my complaining, procrastinating, and "I swear it's there! I watched it yesterday"-ing -- a search engine to do all of that work and deliver results in 1/40000 of the time it took me before. A sing-songy chorus inside my head chants "BRILLIANT!" My ear-to-ear smile, served with a sigh of amazement by technology, lasted me the next nine years and remains on my face today.
          You would think that the adolescent attraction emanating from our pre-pubescent pores would have been equally radiant in our school and teachers. Maybe so, but it was rarely mirrored in our education. So rare it was, that I remember each occasion as the happiest of my day. Aside from the traditional (yet still exciting) learn-to-use-microsoft-word, type-to-learn, make-a-creation-on-KidPix, lessons, my favorite technological experience of childhood education was playing Zoombinis . For a kid that loves school and technology, what could be better than smurf-life, potato-head shaped creatures leading you down a virtual path of mathematical genius? Let me tell you, not much. As I grew older (sigh) technology became more prominent in my classrooms. The inside of my eyelids are branded with various powerpoint slides from lectures that elicited less than a pin-drop of excitement. Yes, I could rehash all of the boring and unsuccessful ways to bring technology into a classroom of hyper-active kids that are forced to sit quietly for block periods of an hour and a half. But I can also remember when my enthusiasm for technology in the classroom skyrocketed way past AIM or zoombini status.
           Why can't every one of my teachers let me Skype french students once a week? Why isn't creating a French Facebook timeline for a fictional-or-famous person a homework assignment each term? I loved these activities so much that I wanted technology integrated as much as possible in each class I had! Our "do-now" activity of designing our ideal classroom (in terms of technology) was one of the most enthralling I had partaken in this week. I added tablets at every chair, TV's on each wall so every student could see them, and dirty, written-on whiteboards that could scroll up to reveal shiny new ones underneath them. My technology was so advanced, some people might say having a teacher in that room would be unnecessary! ....Oh. Oh crap. A teacher? Unnecessary? My future career being usurped by the thing that I advocated for and promoted from the time I was old enough to complain? I couldn't believe the thought. Conversations with my mother, the court-reporter, realed back through my mind when she wondered if she would soon be replaced by a machine that was quicker and more accurate that she and her co-workers. How naïve I was to think that the only danger with technology was that which is showcased on crime television. In my first class of Teaching with Technology, the idea that technology is both fantastic and incredible, but unpredictable and dangerous were reinforced. Though my journey with technology is stable and long-term, my journey with teaching is fresh and new. I look forward to the ways in which I will learn to merge the two into an inter-dependent, inseparable force, not to be reckoned with.