I really enjoyed class today, from presenting our RAFTs to learning about what it takes to be a Yearbook teacher, and listening to our guest speaker talk about getting adequate sources, evaluating sources, and curating sources. I'm learning a lot about practical new media activities and methods of learning to use in my future classroom, and realizing that school does not have to be cut and dry literature is really exciting. I have garnered information and experience with so many different new media sources, including Twitter, Padlet, Storyboardthat.com, pixton.com, Voicethread, Facebook, and so many other media. Instead of punishing students for using social media, I can embrace social media and bring it into the classroom, increasing the ability to have my students be engaged in the classroom.
The speaker, who is part of OSU's English department, showed us a cool app called Scoop It, which allows you to scoop articles that you find poignant or interesting, and to write commentary about that article. This would be a great tool to use in my future classroom, to encourage students to research by finding interesting articles, and to comment on them. Also, she talked about curating sources from Scoop It as well as Pinterest. Online, I found a definition for curation: "In its simplest form, curation is the gathering of content about a specific topic or niche that is found on the web and is later shared with others in a purposeful manner "(http://www.copypress.com/blog/anyone-can-curate-that-means-you/#sthash.8HjU0cya.dpuf). Students can gather sources in a particular niche that they are studying or researching, and then share their sources with other classmates. I also thought it was very cool that our guest speaker gets paid to travel and to review and write about plays. I enjoyed class a lot, and this being our last class, will miss it!
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
TOTD
I enjoyed class a lot yesterday because I learned a lot about integrating new media activities and projects into my future classroom. I want to make use of new media as a way of getting students more engaged and interested in activities in the classroom, and to be able to hear everyone's voice, even the students who do not speak up during class. Voicethread is a great app to use in the classroom because students can record themselves, type a comment, or even video record themselves in response to a prompt on a powerpoint. Especially for leading an online English class, which I have been thinking about, Voicethread is a great medium with which to creatively hear all students' voices and a way that they can dialogue with each others. I plan to use Voicethread and other similar apps in the classroom.
I also liked learning about Padlet, an open space on a website which allows students to easily post pictures and add text, creating a website project within minutes. I also thought the added framework of having to do things through a journalism aspect was genius, because I learned about what it is involved in creating a photo montage, from a historian's point of view, for an audience of activists. My group decided to target the issue of child immigration, especially in light of child immigrants coming alone from countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala. We first found pictures on Google to show how children historically children have been migrating to the U.S., starting with pictures of Irish and other racial immigrant children coming to Ellis Island in the 1800s. Through this activity I could learn about a current events issue in the news, and how to create a historical photo montage, keeping the audience and author in mind. It is a great activity to have students explore journalism and be creative.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Ticket Out the Door, Week 5
Wow! Lots that I learned today, namely, since my group presented our ELA midterms, I learned how much it takes to put together a good lesson plan. And even when you put together a detailed lesson plan, sometimes things can get messed up last minute, like how Twitter decided not to work for the other subgroup's activity. That situation made me realize that it is always important to have a plan B, just in case plan A does not work out. I also realized that it's important for me not to get too attached to my lesson plan, that everything should go the way I think it should go, because then there is no room for flexibility or open discussion. If I have my own agenda for how things should go, this leaves no space for students to feel that they are also being heard, and that their thoughts and contributions matter.
Not only does flexibility matter, but also being fully prepared in terms of creating lesson plans that address at least one of the common core standards, and to show in writing how each activity contributes towards the students' progress with the common core. For me as and educator as well, it's good to see what the activities I am facilitating are doing for students in a qualitative way. It is also interesting and exciting to start including new media into lesson plans, whether that be Facebook, Socrative, Twitter, Padlet, etc...I feel that it is a great way to get students involved in the class, and for students' voices to be heard, especially the quieter students who often do not speak up during a class discussion. Having anonymous postings on a screen is a great way for everyone to open up and be more authentic without fearing judgment from peers. I'm looking forward to learning more about how to create lesson plans as well as new media, activities, and ways to facilitate learning in the classroom.
Not only does flexibility matter, but also being fully prepared in terms of creating lesson plans that address at least one of the common core standards, and to show in writing how each activity contributes towards the students' progress with the common core. For me as and educator as well, it's good to see what the activities I am facilitating are doing for students in a qualitative way. It is also interesting and exciting to start including new media into lesson plans, whether that be Facebook, Socrative, Twitter, Padlet, etc...I feel that it is a great way to get students involved in the class, and for students' voices to be heard, especially the quieter students who often do not speak up during a class discussion. Having anonymous postings on a screen is a great way for everyone to open up and be more authentic without fearing judgment from peers. I'm looking forward to learning more about how to create lesson plans as well as new media, activities, and ways to facilitate learning in the classroom.
Monday, July 7, 2014
Ticket Out the Door
"There is more than one way to burn a book..."(Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury)
Wow, what a great class today! I learned so much today from my fellow students' midterm presentations, particularly about power structures within literacy and censorship, what it means to have "American" values from a journalistic viewpoint, and the difficulties of assimilating into a new culture. I realized, on a deep level from the students who presented on "class", that knowledge is truly the key to freedom and individual agency. However, people don't just need access to factual knowledge, they need the ability to read critical literature, literature that makes them critique, question, and not accept everything at face value. Also, there are more ways to burn a book than physically burning one. For example, teachers can burn books metaphorically by discrediting literacy, discouraging readers, or not allowing students to read the books they want. Without active reading, the existence of books do not matter.
When the "race" group Google searched "American family", I was shocked to see that there were no ethnically mixed families in any of the photos. I acknowledge that there was at least diversity among the families, i.e. African American families, Asian families, etc...however, it was a wakeup call to see that mixed race families were not depicted. Being half-Japanese and half-caucasian, I realized that America still has a way to go in honoring the presence of mixed race families, and encouraging the mixing of races. The poem "Elena" by Pat Mora brought up by the other "race" group really touched me because it reminded me of how the loss of my mother tongue, Japanese, signified a severance of a more whole, authentic relationship with my mother. I felt very close to her growing up, but I always felt that not being able to speak Japanese fluently with her also blocked me from accessing an important part of her identity. I realized how difficult retaining one's mother tongue and culture is when assimilating to a dominant culture, but also how crucially important it is in keeping one's own culture alive, as well as genuine relationships with one's parents and family in one's "mother" culture.
Wow, what a great class today! I learned so much today from my fellow students' midterm presentations, particularly about power structures within literacy and censorship, what it means to have "American" values from a journalistic viewpoint, and the difficulties of assimilating into a new culture. I realized, on a deep level from the students who presented on "class", that knowledge is truly the key to freedom and individual agency. However, people don't just need access to factual knowledge, they need the ability to read critical literature, literature that makes them critique, question, and not accept everything at face value. Also, there are more ways to burn a book than physically burning one. For example, teachers can burn books metaphorically by discrediting literacy, discouraging readers, or not allowing students to read the books they want. Without active reading, the existence of books do not matter.
When the "race" group Google searched "American family", I was shocked to see that there were no ethnically mixed families in any of the photos. I acknowledge that there was at least diversity among the families, i.e. African American families, Asian families, etc...however, it was a wakeup call to see that mixed race families were not depicted. Being half-Japanese and half-caucasian, I realized that America still has a way to go in honoring the presence of mixed race families, and encouraging the mixing of races. The poem "Elena" by Pat Mora brought up by the other "race" group really touched me because it reminded me of how the loss of my mother tongue, Japanese, signified a severance of a more whole, authentic relationship with my mother. I felt very close to her growing up, but I always felt that not being able to speak Japanese fluently with her also blocked me from accessing an important part of her identity. I realized how difficult retaining one's mother tongue and culture is when assimilating to a dominant culture, but also how crucially important it is in keeping one's own culture alive, as well as genuine relationships with one's parents and family in one's "mother" culture.
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