Portfolio Assignment

Where do I even begin? This class has taught me more about myself as a teacher, a learner, and a writer than I ever would have imagined.
The assignments in this class were challenging but very appropriate. The movie was by far my favorite assignment. I had never used a movie maker program before so it challenged me to learn a new skill and create a movie that I never thought I could do. Making the movie was really hard but the finished product was well worth it. I will definitely show this movie off to all of my classes and say "see? I made this, you guys can do anything!!" From doing the movie I learned that I really CAN do something I have no idea how to do if I work hard enought at it. I'm not going to lie, I thought the blog was really strange at first. I have never had a blog before and it felt weird to write my work in it. After a while I got the hang of it and it made sense in this class. I liked being able to write more informally because it was easier to get my thoughts out. I think a blog could be very useful in a future classroom for students to keep a journal, reflecting on their work. As a teacher, I think it's important to hear the struggles and successes your students went through completing that assignment. The wikis were really challenging for me because of some personal issues that arose around the same time. I read the articles and I felt like I got a better sense of the teaching of writing. I liked how the articles were different and more creative than most articles you read about the teaching of writing. These articles opened my eyes to new ways of looking at the teaching of writing and different strategies that could be used in the classroom. Writing the memo gave me a sense of what it would be like to really be a teacher. It was challenging to write in a professional voice and organize everything that I wanted to say. This memo will definitely help me in the future because I KNOW I will have to do something like that. It also gave me a better idea of how I would want to teach writing. The assignment sequence was my second favorite assignment. I liked working with Michelle and creating this fun assignment that we would really give our classes. The hardest part for me was finding the standards and organizing my thoughts in a clear way. I have written a lot of lesson plans but this one I felt like I might really use someday.
I really liked James Gee's book. It put video games into a new perspective for me. After reading this book I understand how children can be so focused on beating a level but not as focused on finishing a chapter in their math book. As teachers, we need to figure out what drives kids to finish and learn how to connect it to their school work. Harvey's book was not as strong to me as Gee's book, for some reason. Harvey made a lot of good points in her book about nonfiction and why it is so important to utilize it in the classroom. I liked this book because she was more "to the point" than Gee. Gee would talk a lot about things that didn't really pertain to his ideas and Harvey was more straight forward with her thoughts. \
I have learned a lot about myself in this class. I learned that I can make a movie!!! no, but really. I have really enjoyed this class. This class has made me feel more confident in the teaching of writing and the way I feel it should be carried out in the classroom. I know in the future when a writing assignment comes up I will analyze it in a different way because of this class. I think the biggest thing I will take with me is to remember to give students choice and freedom in their writing. It will allow for them to be more passionate and creative with their writing and use a personal voice. Pkittle, you are a great teacher and you have inspired me to look at reading, writing and teaching in a whole new way. I am actually going to miss your class. thank you for everything!!

Reflection on Memorandum

All in all I think the memo was a good assignment. I like being put into a situation that is realistic and that will actually help me professionally someday. I found it easy to find problems and solutions for the writing program at "my school". I liked being creative and making up the problems that students were facing and how I, as a teacher, would fix them. The biggest problem I had was writing in a "professional voice". I felt like I might have put some un-needed information in my memo. I really liked the 4 points that I made about the teaching of writing because I felt that they were real problems that students face. My explanations might have been a little short but then again, I didn't want to put in un-necassary (sp?) information just to make it longer. I feel like I did a pretty good job of explaining my reasonings and using the articles to back me up. If I were a principle I would definitely take the recommendations made in my memo into serious consideration when designing a new writing program. The memo definitely challenged me as a future teacher because it is something that we are actually going to have to do. I feel like I can talk my way into or out of almost anything but when it comes to writing I tend to be a little scatter-brain. I would have liked to have someone edit it before I turned it in to you but I couldn't so take it as it is!!

Correctness

I have always been good at grammar. I'ts my strength. I don't know why, or how, but I've always understood grammar and really liked it. My freshman year in high school I had to make a grammar book and then senior year I had to make one for just commas. I don't know if that helped but I have never had problems with writing correctly. My biggest problem is the fluency of my writing. I find it really hard to stay on track when I'm writing, even though my grammar is probably perfect. My sentences get all scrambled and the content of my writing gets confusing. When I read the article about Fluency and Flair, it immediately made me think of myself. I am good writer. I will spell everything correctly and make sure the right comma is used in the right place. I guess it depends on what is viewed as a good writer though. There are people out there who can write a really engaging story that you can't put down but are terrible at the technicalities (sp?) of writing. It seems like it is one or the other.

What I know and have learned...

So far I have learned one major concept when it comes to the teaching of writing: Kids are scared of it. We, as teachers, say write about this and that and poof, we expect them to just create this beautiful wrtitten thing. The sad thing is that we can't just expect them to write without helping them or engaging them. Looking back on some of the writing assignments I've had to do, they were boring and I only did them because I had to. Most of these articles focus of the creative aspect of writing and letting children's imaginations run wild. I really like the idea of co-authoring because it takes a little bit of the pressure off of the students and lets them be a little more creative. This also works really well with younger students because they can speak fluently and tell wonderful stories but writing them down is the hard part. I also really like the idea of individual prompts. Starting a story for a child and letting them expand and go crazy works much better than having them all write the same story. I also really like the idea of fluency and flair. With younger grades, although grammar and spelling are important, what's more important is the fluency and pizzazz in their writing. If a child can be engaged and tell a story out loud without worrying about the grammar issues, it proves that they are in fact, good writers. I think grammar is very important but, in my mind, good writing and good grammar are different. I have learned a lot from these articles so far, like fun creative ways to teach writing.

The conquests of my silly little movie...

I honestly didn't think I could do this pkittle. Make a movie? are you kidding me?? Once I got the hang of Pinnacle, it was really user friendly, which was nice. My intro was strong and I felt like I knew where I was going with my movie. When I sat down to work on the rest of my movie I found myself stuck. I wanted to relate the benefits of yoga to the life of a college student. I have been soo stressed and it feels like I can never catch up. When I started doing yoga this semester I honestly felt a difference in my over all health. I believe in the benefits of yoga and I wanted to make that clear in my movie. Basically I had aspects 4 of learning that I wanted to address: WHAT I'm learning, WHY I'm learning, HOW I'm learning, and if it works. Easier said than done my friend. My biggest challenge was not having access to my videos. Videos take up a lot of time and since I didn't have any in my movie it was just not long enough. I used nothing but images and pictures to get across what I was trying to say. Sometimes the right images were .gif and I couldn't use them because I needed .jpeg so I had to search through more just to find the right image in a .jpeg. how frustrating right? I really wanted to show that yoga is not only beneficial for the stretching of the body and muscles but more importantly, the mind. I tried to include James Gee in my movie by talking a little bit about his affinity group principle. Becoming part of the affinity group for yoga was a huge part of my learning experience. The reason I didn't explain Gee more is because YOU are my audience pkittle and I figured you already knew about Gee. This movie was an interesting learning experience in itself. I really didn't think I could do it and I honestly think if I would have had more time to learn more about yoga and more time to make this movie it would have been really really cool, but I felt a little rushed. I hope you take this blog into consideration while watching my silly little movie. Try to give us some slack. : )

pkittle this one's for you

Don't ask me why I'm doing this at 12:30AM, I just am. ok. So here's how my DigiDoc is coming along: I spent the majority of my day today installing programs and upgrades for this program my dad gave me called Pinnacle Studio. He said it was really cool and pretty easy to use and that it is basically another version of Windows Movie Maker, but from what little work I did on WMM I didn't think this project was going to be easy at all. For thursday's class I had drawn a storyboard in my notebook and I knew which images I wanted to use AND which songs. When I got to class, I felt really behind and I started to freak out a little bit. After working with Pinnacle today, with what little patience I had left, I managed to bust out a whole minute and ten seconds. I found it surprisingly easy to put the images I wanted along with music and fun transitions. I really felt like I was making a little movie. Now that I have had some experience with Pinnacle I feel like it will be easier in the next few days (haha.. procrastination) to figure a few more things out and make a really cool little movie. I did ran into a few problems on my journey through movie making land today(and I remember you don't know anything about Pinnacle pkittle so I am not asking for your help, I am just blogging) : 1. I saved all of my images and videos I had in the same folder called YOGASTUFF. For some reason when I pull that folder up in Pinnacle the videos aren't there. I'm assuming since they are saved in my computer through quicktime, which is from Apple, they end in .mov and .mov videos aren't compatible with programs like Pinnacle, which is from Intel. I'm going to try saving them in a different folder that IS accessible through Pinnacle and see if I can get them to work. IF NOT, I DO have a question for you pkittle, do we HAVE to use videos? ok. 2. I can't figure out how to use my roommate's jumpdrive thing. I stick it in my USB port and it opens but I can't figure out how to save it on there. any suggestions?? Alright. In conclusion.. I guess I can say that I feel better about this project than I thought I would at this point. I don't feel great but, I think everything will be fine.

Learning and Action - Ch. 5

As a future teacher this chapter caught my attention; one quote in particular:
"Learners cannot do much with ots of overt information that a teacher has explicitly told them outside of the context of immersion in actual practice. At the same time, learners cannot learn without some overt information; they cannot discover everything for themselves." After reading this I sat for a second and thought about what it meant. How many times have I been sitting in class while my teacher is lecturing about something. I'm listening and taking my notes and trying to retain as much as possible. Once the lecture is finished my teacher tells us to apply what we just learned in a real-life situation. I start looking through my notes trying to connect the lecture with my life and it is almost impossible. Almost as impossible as if my teacher would have just asked us a question about the lecture without giving it first. There seems to be a happy medium in teaching where kids are actively learning and teachers are scaffolding their students, that is often hard to attain. "The solution is to give information in context and to couch it in ways that make sense in the context of embodied action" says Gee. Easier said than done my friend. I took a geography class last semester and on the first day my teacher told us that it would be impossible to teach geography "in context" in the boring, white-walled, classroom we were in. In order to "actively learn" we would need maps and globes and a many more resources. He told us he would do his best considering the circumstances. I found it very interesting that he made a point of how much the learning environment can affect the learner. Gee discusses Lara Croft and how there is a "training game" where you are taught all the commands to play the other games in the series. He made an interesting point about how the training instructions for that game wouldn't make any sense if you weren't playing it. I think this is a strong argument in the world of education seeing as most of intrustion in today's schools is direct and not interactive.