Gwen's Site

http://sites.google.com/site/gwensenglishexploration/

UEN Site Reflection

The UEN site is fantastic. I had no idea this was available. I’ve used this site to access the core requirements and the UEN personal page, but never looked closely at what else was available. Their core information is really useful and I like the link to The Secondary English Teacher site. This location has a great chart that has all grades, 7-12, in one document. As someone who has multiple grades in every classroom, this is the best way to view the core. I love how the material is all centralized. It seems to have a really nice balance of tools for the teacher and the students and a lot of diversity in approaches.

The Pioneer site is a good resource. I was worrying about how to get some of the UVU library resources after graduation and I’m glad this is available. The SIRS search engine on the Pioneer site seems like a really good tool for the classroom. I often have students getting lost and distracted when I ask them to find information on the internet. I have had a student pull up a very…interesting…google image search that involved a playboy photo shoot that the filter just didn’t catch.

I’m generally pretty dismissive of online lesson plans, but I was surprised by some of the interesting and creative ideas. I love group projects and found two really good plans that include that method. There weren’t a huge number on the 8th grade pages, but enough to bring in some great new approaches. I also appreciated all the interactives that could be great for students who finish assignments early, as well as elements that could tempt students to my class website.

How wonderful to have a place to go for relevant videos other than YouTube. There is a lot of great material there, but it takes a lot of time to wade through the bad, the inappropriate, and irrelevant. I think this make the SIRS website also very intriguing, since that filtering process will be done for me.

What I really need now is a whole day to just explore and play on the UEN, Pioneer, and SIRS sites. I can’t wait to share the treasures I’ve found with other teachers I know!

The Internet

I love the internet, warts and all. It is a part of our modern lives, and it has amazing resources. I can’t wait to find imaginative ways to incorporate it more in my lesson plans. I currently either give kids one specific site to visit or turn them loose on the internet to research topics of interest (the school computers have a powerful filter) and let them explore without any real guidance. I really like the idea of providing my students with many pre-approved sites to choose from, and specific goals to reach at each location. This seems like a responsible way to use the internet. It doesn’t overwhelm students with irrelevant information or let them wander aimlessly. I believe in a good filter and a preview of relevant sites that I’m recommending. I also need to follow the links on these “approved” sites because sometimes they take you to unexpected locations. It is such a good idea to have a review of smart cyber rules before letting the kids work on the computer. I recently had a class I was teaching that was reading, writing, and drawing Japanese Manga. I had them research terms and types of Manga. Unfortunately I didn’t Google all the terms before I passed out the words and one student got very graphic descriptions of certain sites because of the Japanese phrase I had given him. Ooops! I still have a lot to learn!

Teacher Websites

1) Google sites is a really nice website that blends ease of use with a professional look. I really like how easy it is to both set up and maneuver around. The benefits are obvious. How great to have all the class information in one place that both the students and parents can easily access. I like how Google sites can be updated quickly and you can add in an almost unlimited number of pages and gadgets into the site. It would be wonderful to post all your assignments onto a page so no student can claim they lost their handout and didn’t know what to do. This is also a great way to get the students used to turning to the internet to get practical information, not just for entertainment.

2) The main drawback is the amount of time that it can take to make this and keep it updated. I currently have a UEN website and I have never been able to get students or parents to check it at all. I’ve put extra credit assignments and homework updates on it but with no results. It is required by the state, but it really is ignored by the students, so I don’t keep it current like I should. I think the fact that Googlesites looks so professional (while the UEN site doesn’t) could make a real difference. I have to think harder about how to make this a useful tool for the students, parents, and myself.

3) It is required for each teacher to have a UEN website for Utah Charter schools. Up to this point I created one just to meet the requirement, rather than every-day use. I’m excited to try creating a very basic page for each class on the UEN site and then linking it too a Google web page. I like all the individual pages we have been introduced so far. I definitely want to include all my handouts on my website, as well as important links, such as audio files of books we are reading, exact Amazon pages where parent can buy the books we are reading, and tutorials on the subjects we are studying. I’m still trying to figure out what the secret ingredient is to make this a useful tool.

My Beliefs

I feel unsure about the best balance of technology in the English classroom. I try to use video clips and some websites in my lesson plans. I’ve had the kids use UtahWrite.com to write five paragraph essays and have them electronically scored. These efforts have added to my teaching, but they also slow things down almost every time. I suspect it’s as much my inexperience as anything else, but it makes me think twice when including it in my curriculum.

I also have a teacher website and I have never been able to figure out how to get the kids to look at it. I’ve included extra credit opportunities, assignment descriptions, even jokes to make it useful and entertaining, but virtually no students or parents reference it. This probably shows my lack of creativity, rather than a problem with the technology. The articles we read have inspired me that there are many more options than I ever thought about, so I’m willing to put aside any concerns and see what is out there. I do believe that I don't know enough to make a fair judgement at this point.

Millenial Generation

The Millenial Generation video was a cute glimpse at what our students want from technology and how they see adults out of their generation interface with what exists now. I am definitely on of those parents who turn anything technical over to my kids to solve or carry out. I quickly abdicate any responsibility over understanding the computer, my phone, the school projector, etc. I find that if it has a screen, my brain gets fuzzy and I lose twenty IQ points.

Most kids today do the opposite. They see a screen and their brains turn on. Their imagination starts kicking in and they explore what is new. I need to tap into that phenomena and change the cause and effect of new technology in my own life.

The New WWW

Honestly, this article made me exhausted. It is a really well-written, thorough essay, but it really pointed out just how little I know and how I fail to incorporate technology in my classroom. I do agree that students are distracted by the constant contact with information and entertainment through their phones and computers. Their lives really are centered around what I think of as “screen technology.”

Could I actually compete with these time-sinks if I made my class more technology based? Hmmm, I hadn’t thought of that. Would they actually do homework instead of playing video games until two in the morning if I used WebQuest or created a class portal? I don’t actually think that I can win out in a contest between writing a short story and World of Warcraft, but I can make it more assessable. Now I just need to learn out how to use those two programs! It all seems overwhelming!

Why Integrate?

This smaller article said many of the same things as the article about the new World Wide Web. It didn’t get as specific about which programs can be used, but the author said the classroom should introduce students to the same technology found in a modern office and use new tools to make learning a dynamic exploration and expression.

I do agree that the internet can open up my students to the most current information and the experts that are working today, but with English curriculum, it is hard to see the balance between the book, pencil, and paper versus the computer and the internet. The article points out what is available for science class, and I know there is a lot that can be brought into my subject area, but where to start?

Engaged Learning

This video seems pretty lightweight compared to the article about the World Wide Web. It did point out that our kids are competing in a global marketplace where the children from India and China far outnumber our students. The point they are making is that we need to give them the advantage of modern technology so they can fully compete.

It seemed a little bit like an ad meant to scare parents into buying gadgets for their kids so the US can maintain its economic dominance and kids will still have jobs available to them when the grow up. I’m not sure I agree with this premise. I do agree with their point that there are many new ways to share information and engage the students with this technology.

Strengths and Weaknesses

After reviewing the NET standards and taking the TICS survey I’m pretty depressed about my current abilities to bring technology into my classroom. The second element of the NET Standards is very scary to me:
“Teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessments incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS•S. “
The idea that I need to design and develop technology is really overwhelming.

While going through the TICS survey I did fairly well with any question that is about research. This is where I am most comfortable. Number twenty asks if I feel if I could provide a list of high-quality websites for students to use in research. I have done this in the past and enjoyed researching what is available and where it comes from. I also feel I can compare products, such as question fifteen, as long as there are reviews and customer feedback available. Number sixteen and seventeen that ask about finding high order thinking activities make me feel highly confident if they are based on things that I can research and find. If I have to create them then I am totally lost, which also reflects my difficulties with the second part of the NETS goals.

The third part of NETS, items b and c, are about using technology to communicate with peers, parents and students. I feel I can use emails and school websites to create basic communication, but I know it is a very low-level ability. My current school website is to static that it really isn’t ever used by students and parents.

As far as modeling digital citizenship, I am such a low-level user that my technology background pretty much consist of Youtube clips and web links, which don’t require much ethical or legal considerations. I do have conversations with students about plagiarism and what constitutes plagiarizing and the ethical guidelines that govern quoting websites and online papers. Again, a very low-tech application.

Am I a leader in using new technology wisely in the classroom? No, definitely not. I still have my students figure out problems when setting up the digital projector or if the internet is doing something I don’t understand. I consider the students the experts and myself five steps behind where they are. Technology slows down my lessons, so I seldom use it. I always seem to spend a huge amount of time setting things up or figuring them out.

I am moderately confident that I can learn new programs if there is reasonable training, but not confident at all that I can learn it on my own. I think in some cases I may be overly confident, seeing how I went through a two-hour group tutorial on how to do electronic state testing for writing and then completely messed it up when the actual event occurred.

So what are my goals? The deficits seem so huge I almost don’t know where to start. Learning about Webquest and finding a way to incorporate it into my lesson plans is a good start. I know a little about Powerpoint, but haven’t seen many good examples that actually create engagement, so being able to do that is also a goal. I think the most important thing to learn is what technology is out there, analyzing what will add to my classroom, and then taking the time to learn it well enough that I can do it without struggling with the small details. Those are some current goals.

How will I meet those goals? Doing the assignments from this class is an important first step. I need to be sure to ask questions as often as I need to –which may be a lot! I also need to really strive to find relevant topics to feature in the homework I am assigned. If I’m just trying to complete assignments as fast and easy as possible and not really striving to make it relevant, I won’t be seeing the big picture of how it can help me in teaching. The time a project takes needs to be equal to the impact it can make on a classroom, and that is up to me.