Self-Evaluation

Self- Evaluation

In your opinion, what are the most important skills for 21st Century learning? To have the students care about what their future will bring. Like having self-motivation.
What are the most important technology skills to infuse into your learning environment?

Tell some ways, via digital tools, you have learned to:
• Create/Innovate- I guess I was able to create my own uvatar and become involved in a second life!
• Communicate/Collaborate-I was introduced to many new ways to communicate/collaborate such as twitter, blogging, wiki spaces, voice treats and so on. I esp. like twitter to be able to stay on top of things
• Problem-Solve/Critically Think, etc…This whole week was allowing me to problem-solve/critically think...I still want to do more with my resource room students. I want to be able to have the special education students show me that they can be problem solvers too!


Changes you can implement TODAY in your teaching (as a result of this class) (don’t necessarily have to be technology-related) As a result of this class I will make myself work harder to show the students how to be better problem-solvers. If I give the students that utilize my room this one tool I can expand and show them how to be responsible.

Assess yourself and your learning journey this week. Did you…?
• Create more than you consumed? I would have to say that I created more than I consumed. I tried to add most of the sites to my favorites and took notes to go back and try later.
• Contribute to a collective/shared body of knowledge? I felt that when I needed to add things I did so.
• Participate in digital dialogue? I like the digital dialogue. My favorite would have to be twitter just because that I can see new info right away since I set up Twirl. I also like the blogging. Many times I will find myself saying more when posting my thoughts.
• Use self-directed or discovery learning? (find some answers on your own) When searching the internet for something new I always find something new. Just wish that I had more time to read all of the information that is out there. I use to think that my brain was full enough. Now I can't seem to get enough.
Please try to give specific examples of all of the above.

Finally, did you “Think Different”?
Or, how has your thinking changed (if at all) as a result of taking this course? After the interview and reading the articles I now have a different direction of thinking for my resource students. I need to show them the tools to become successful. Give them ways, somehow, to be self-motivators, responsible, and rule followers so that they can do well when they leave high school.

21st Century Learning-Reading

This article is just we have been talking about all week long. I agree that we all have to be on the same page and have conversations in order for our plan to work. I have to agree with Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach when she said, "21st Century change is so emergent that I do not think we are even close to understanding "how to" and actually with these shifts we are creating a permissive framework in education where there are no clear answers." I think of how things have changed in just the amount of time that we have had our apple computers. The first group of teachers had different a different computer than the teachers that received their computers later. Just this week has proved to me that there is so much out in this world. There is no way that I can begin consuming everything. I will start with the things that I remember from this week and keep trying to educate myself and the students as I learn new strategies and ideas in technology.

Web 2.0 promo - Delicious link

To try this yourself go to: http://del.icio.us/

Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance

We are so fortunate to have small class sizes so that we can have the students interact with "good" questions. I feel that when I taught the Read 180 class, that my best question before reading a new book, or short passage was "Has anyone experienced anything like this?" Usually I would have one student respond to this question. Then this would lead to another person adding and so forth. This was great because we haven't even read anything yet.

As far as students asking those wonderful questions like, how long does this paper have to be? I just started telling students what you think it should be. When I responded this way most of the students wrote alot while others just wrote the bare minimum. I think that the more we keep encouraging students and letting them be self-motivators we will have very successful students.

Teaching for Tomorrow

1st slide - Wally, I enrolled you a program to cure uselessness.
2nd slide - Your classmates will be a glass hammer and a bag of nothing.
3rd slide - Can I borrow a pen? Dude no arms. (He is asking the bag of nothing)

The reason that I picked this cartoon that was in today's paper is because I felt that it went along with the chapter that we for tonight's assignment. Chapter One "What Skills Will Students Need for the 21st Century?"

While reading this article I kept thinking that maybe we need to be focusing on work ethic skills first then technology. Rather than looking at what needs to happen when acquiring school skills I feel that we need to find a way to teach work ethics with school skills along with technology. Many of our students do not have the work ethics to survive in the work world. Maybe we give our students too many chances to get that passing grade. How many chances will these students get at their job to mess up! Yes, we want our students to be successful, but let’s have them really work for it. When looking at most of the special education students in our district, they have been spoon fed too long. When they come into the resource room they want the answers given to them. I need to give them the tools that will help them search for those answers and find them on their own. What are they learning when things are given to them. I don’t want to go on and on about this but this is the first step that needs to be taken. As a teacher I know that I need to be stronger too. Make these kids work for their answers. Yes, we will have many failures along the way but if we step up we will have students that start stepping up.

In the first section of the reading when a highly qualified person was given the responsibility to find a computer for the cartographic company and ended up loosing her job was a real eye-opener. Here we have a very good student who hasn’t obtained the problem-solving skills needed for her to survive in this position. Even our best students who we think will survive just fine are struggling in the work force.

PM POST

Web 2.o
There is so much out there that I didn't know where to start. I tried finding something new but wasn't happy with what I found. Then I just decided to talk about a site that I use almost daily during the school year. I chose to do a power point on the delicious link. I like this site for the fact the I can get it from any computer. I have most of my stuff bundled. I find it easier to get things this way as I know Katie likes to tag her links. I also like using Skype from home. This allows my kids to visit with their grandparents over the internet and see them by video. Corbin likes to practice his spelling words with his grandma in Colorado. This was very easy to set up.
I also tried an avatar and I didn't really get the hang of it. Maybe when I have free time this would be interesting to see if I can use it educationally. Well while I had some time waiting for the rest of the class to complete their projects this site needed a fee in order to do anything. Yuk!

The following sites that sound helpful or fun! Friv game site. I could use a site like clipperz. Zefty.com cool! Soundsnap are cool sound clips that are free.

I enjoyed listening to other teachers give ideas on how to use google docs. I am still at a loss on a project that I can develop for my resource students. I hate the fact that I won't be able to prepare for a class next year.

Chap. 1
I was nice to see what happens in the each side of the brain. The only thing that I was certain about was that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and and the opposite for the left side of the brain. Alot of the brain information makes me recall the class with Marty Fetch. Making sure that we are teaching all students in the four quadrants of the brain because every student learns differently. There are strengths and weaknesses in everyone when we are learning.