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.