Saturday, October 15, 2005

Reflection from Sat. morning 9/17

I wished we had gotten to learn more about the possibilities of Manila Newbies and how we can incorporate it into our classrooms. I feel like I need to use the NWP Tutorial and spend some time checking things out. It was really empowering to learn to use the links and posting news items and stories. I am excited to create my own web page and the possibility of students and parents looking up assignments, curriculum, checking their grade and etc. on my webpage. I need to talk to Michael and the rest of the Pearson crew on our residency project...

I also started planning the details of my immigration digital storytelling project for december, but I still need to plan with my colleague on how we can best achieve a nice final product.
"Life Academy Class of 2004 welcomes you!"

# - Department: TI Reflection - 10/15/05; 10:21:16 AM - Discuss (2 responses)

10/15/05 Today's reflection

    I feel that using technology in connection with teaching writing develops more accountability, enthusiasm, and self-reflection in their pieces. In a similar way to students who are enrolled in Journalism and Yearbook, they know that their writing will be seen by an audience and they know that it may be criticized and scrutinized by other students and even adults. It adds another level of accountability for most students. I think they will be more careful during the editing process, word selection and overall care in a piece that they know could be read by anyone on the web.

    Students can also get instant feedback on the internet from their peers, unlike formal essays, where they may have to wait anywhere from a week or more to get the teacher's comments, questions and suggestions. I have also heard students mention how much they enjoyed doing peer edits, read alouds or other group writing exercises. They have made comments like, "I liked the read aloud because I don't feel as much pressure or stress as reading it to a teacher." Another benefit of this is that it creates a community of writers, where they support one another through critiques and suggestions, which in turn will make their own writing better!

    For my own residency, I am in the process of setting up a conference call with Pearson next week to think through what we need to do in order to have successful workshops during the first week of December. Although I have met with my colleague and have begun to create our project, we are still making major adjustments to it based on how our classes are responding to the curriculum. This is the first time we are doing this project, so we've been tiptoeing through the scaffolding of it. I am excited to discuss with Michael, David, etc. about the project and pick their brains for things they have seen work and things that have fallen flat on its face.

# - Department: TI Reflection - 10/15/05; 10:17:13 AM - Discuss (8 responses)

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Technology update

We have now officially finished our 4th week of the new school year and we FINALLY have our refurbished computer lab up and running! We have new carpets, paint, clean computers, a new computer lab system for reporting problems/ sign in, and soon to be new bookshelves, tables and chairs. Our server is up and we have trained about half the school on how to use it and what their student passwords are. This upcoming week we will have a NetOps training. This will enable ANY and ALL teachers to have access over any student computer in the whole school. If a student is playing games, going on an unauthorized site, and etc., any teacher can shut down the site and even the computer from another classroom. I have already begun using it in my classroom for my 8 computers (without telling them) and they have simply gone back to their research/work. They probably thought the website was down or there was too much traffic! Big brother in full effect!

I have continued to utilize our LCD projector on a daily basis with my laptop, for taking notes, demonstrating how to research, and showing historical pictures. We have 3 new LCD projectors this year and this has enabled our staff to use them quite readily. I have also utilized our digital camcorders for demonstrating and reflecting good/bad group work to my Humanities class. We watched a short 6 minute clip on their work on a group anticipation guide activity and they reflected whether they were working well as a group or not. I believe I will continue to utilize the digital camcorders to further demonstrate to students to help them become life long learners.

# - Department: TI Reflection - 9/17/05; 12:22:11 PM - Discuss (4 responses)

Lesson Plan 9/16/05

I. Last minute preparations for Presentations

II. Presentations, take notes on info.

Homework - Write a 1 pg. reflection about what you learned about the amendments. Write down 5 questions you still have.

# - Department: Government 05 - 9/17/05; 12:09:27 PM - Discuss

Lesson Plan for Friday, 9/16/05

I. Personal Journal (1.5 pages)

II. Vocabulary Quiz

III. Say/Mean/Matter Worksheet for Macho!

Homework - Read Chapter 6 in Macho! and do 10 active reading post-its

# - Department: Humanities 3 - 9/17/05; 11:58:26 AM - Discuss

hollaback...

Hey folks!

Just wanted to see if this works... If you want to know what things are going on in the news, click here...

# - Department: - 9/17/05; 11:52:07 AM - Discuss

Hot flash - reflection questions

Click the headline to read the guiding questions for the year. (If it is too much effort to cursor to the headline, then click here.)

# - Department: - 9/17/05; 11:28:54 AM - Discuss

Thursday, August 11, 2005

more thoughts...

I don't know how Pearsons can further support our school site on this, but I wanted to mention that we have a mandatory senior project in which every senior is required to present their research, internship and any other knowledge they acquired in a PowerPoint presentation.

In addition, I have thought more about the possible project with American Literature & US History for my junior class this upcoming year. We probably have a group of about a dozen juniors who are video, editing, lighting and sound specialist in video production. They were in our documentary film making class and each of them produced their own 5 minute documentary short. Since they have many hours of experience using tripods, Sony Handycams, Pinnacle Studio 9, they are quite knowledgeable as potential leaders in the class for this project. Since they have background in editing with the consistently crashing and freezing Studio 9, I'm sure they can pick up the use of Adobe Premier relatively quickly with some tutorial and support.

I'm excited to get Pearsons in our school for some collaboration in the upcoming year. I also know that my partner teacher at my school, Yumi Matsui, a recent Summer Institute graduate is also highly eager to integrate more technology into our curriculum.

Now, the only thing is to find Premier for a good price!

The cheapest new Adobe Premier Pro 1.5 I can find it for is still $367 at...

# - Department: - 8/11/05; 11:40:04 AM - Discuss (1 response)

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Possibilities for the classroom...

I have actually been thinking about this particular topic for a while now. I teach in a combined US History & American Lit. (Humanities) blocked class and I have been brainstorming about the multitude of ways to incorporate technology into a project utilizing both their historical knowledge and understanding of literature in a specific time period. Perhaps, groups of students can create a digital his/her story about what they have learned from a time period & a novel using the characters of both...

If I were to take it even further, I could have the students video tape their own scripts in 'action' and edit it using Adobe Premier Pro. That would be quite an undertaking but well worth it. We could even have an exhibition night to showcase their films and perhaps they can play it on KDOL (the local cable access channel) when its complete. Just a thought...

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

# - Department: - 8/10/05; 10:19:06 PM - Discuss (1 response)

Tuesday, August 9, 2005

From hell and back... just kidding!

Things are going great so far! I get to work on my family reunion video, learn Adobe Premier Pro 1.5, meet other cool BAWP TCs AND get pizza AND money for it! What a great way to spend the summer! :)

I've used Pinnacle Studio 9 before and now I truly know how it feels to be a pro/am film maker! The most satisfying part of this BAWP workshop so far has been the ability to work on a program that doesn't crash or freeze every 15 minutes! Also, learning the various nuances of Premier has been really exciting as well. This program rocks!

Some of the instruction given on Premier could have been easier to absorb if it were given on hardcopy and perhaps gone through a little bit slower. Perhaps showing a model of a simple film or a digital story on our laptops might have been an easy way to understand how the final product might/ should look like...

# - Department: - 8/9/05; 3:26:49 PM - Discuss (2 responses)