Achievement Gap Movie

Journal #10 - "Making History"

A teacher from PA is using podcasts to help get her students more involved and out of the monotony of paper-based projects. She had students place themselves in a historic moment and act as though they were happening live. She had each group gather information through research first so that they could truly understand what their mood should be like when reenacting. They next were able to prepare a script and begin to record their podcast. They saved them as an MP3 file. Students were able to use these podcasts to eventually study for their final exam and to help review important material in a way other than reading a textbook or notes. Another tool that the teacher has used is a virtual business simulator that allowed students to create their own businesses and analyze why certain things happened to their profit and other portions of their business when certain decisions were made. These new virtual tools help to engage students that would otherwise sigh at the idea of “another research project”.

Why do you think these tools are so helpful to students?

With technology now being a part of each and every student’s everyday lives, it is important to incorporate it into the classroom. Many young adults gage their lives around technology including e-mail, e-music, social networks, etc. Instead of the old “poster projects”, digital tools now substitute for marker and poster paper. Students can create videos, podcasts, and other various digital projects that keep them engaged because they are now so in-tune with technology.

How would you incorporate this into an activity based on your content area?

As a future math teacher, I would have students act out situations in which they might use a concept we learned that year in the real world. For example, one group could say they were an architect trying to build a building and use Pythagorean’s Theorem to help solve an issue they had building it, etc. They would then create a video using this knowledge and following up by explaining the concept to the class. Each group would have a different concept so right before finals, they would be able to review all the concepts from the year using a real-world application.

Shein, E. (2008, Ocotber, 1). Making History. T.H.E. Journal, Retrieved November 07, 2008, from http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23394_1

Journal #9 - "Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students"

While blogs are becoming more popular and resourceful as a classroom tool, Dr. Ruth Reynard states that there are 5 common mistakes that teachers make when using them. By knowing what these mistakes are and how to properly fix them, students will likely be more willing to include themselves in blogging activities.

1. Ineffective Contextualization:

This idea focuses on clarifying to students why and how the tool is creating an advantage to them and their education. It is the job of the instructor to decide what is an appropriate use of the tool within their classroom from how often to use it to which portion of the course it will aid in teaching. Because blogs are best used as self-reflection tools, teachers need to decide when self-reflection will most benefit the students within the course in order to not discourage the students.

2. Unclear Learning Outcomes

A teacher must have clear learning outcomes if they wish to use the blog for critical thinking and thought processing. One way to develop higher thinking skills using the blog is through analysis. Students can compare/contrast ideas and incorporate their answers for further learning through blogging. By doing so, they have it laid out for fellow students and themselves to reflect on. Another way is through synthesis. Synthesis can be used to take original ideas and incorporate them into what they are learning. Another way is through new ideas alone. By moving students toward new ideas through a blog, teachers can take their students to a higher level of learning. Lastly, a student’s application of all these newly developed ideas and thoughts shows that they truly have grasped a concept. It is great to see within one’s blog that these processes have been gone through step-by-step.

3. Misuse of the Environmen

It is of course important for a teacher to use a blog in the most appropriate way. For example, if a teacher is looking for a discussion, a blog is not the most appropriate tool. It is most important to use blogs for something that they can use to reflect as themselves on different ideas and also develop thought processes and “their own voice”.

4. Illusive Grading Practices

Grading of blogs should never be based on one’s specific answers because many students feel differently about different things. Instead, one should look at how well they reflect, use the course content in their ideas, move these ideas to a higher level, and apply these concepts to real life.

5. Inadequate Time Allocation

Because blogs are self-reflection tools, many students may need more time to learn more and expand their ideas within their blog. It is suggested that blog assignments stay open throughout a course so that students can often go back and add more to them.

If educators are able to follow these common mistakes and be sure not to fall into the traps of any of them, blogging should be an extremely effective tool within any classroom.

How could you use blogging within your content area of teaching?

As a future math teacher, I would use blogging for students to somewhat “workout” their problems with math. It is known that many students grunt and sigh at the idea of taking a math class. Instead of making it all numbers, I could have each student create a blog. The students would then be able to use these blogs to answer different questions I propose to them about real-world applications of math, their fears about math, and somewhat solve their own math issues by blogging about how I could make their math class better for them to understand.

Why do you think blogging/self-reflection are important tools to use within a classroom?

I think it is important for students to self-reflect because it makes them more aware of who they are and how they learn best. By thinking of what troubles they had with a certain concept, or what activity helped them learn best, students will understand better what they need in order to succeed. If students are aware of these ideas themselves, teachers are able to better adapt to their students’ diverse ways of learning.

Reynard, R. (2008, October, 15). Avoiding the 5 most common mistakes in using blogs with students.. T.H.E. Journal, Retrieved November 07, 2008, from http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23434_1

Journal #8 - "A 'Fantastic Super' Use of Technology: Closing the Digital Divide"

At a North Carolina pre-K-5 school, students, families, and educators are using e-mail and other technological tools to their advantages. Every family has access to Internet whether provided by their own funds or by the school’s grant through Bell-South. Students and their parents are able to e-mail teachers and administrators 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Each day a Web summary of what the students learned is posted onto the class website and parents are able to access it as well as other people that are parts of the students’ lives. Parents are able to know exactly what their child learned in school that day without having to ask the age old question or probe at their child for hours about what they learned. The entire design of the school, from classrooms to chairs to the way in which teachers are collaborating is set up to help students and support academics as best as possible.

What do you feel is the most important piece of technology that this school uses in their classrooms?

While I do not necessarily believe that there is one specific piece of technology that creates the best atmosphere for students, I think the e-mail plays a vital role in the success of communication between parents, teachers and students. Without e-mail, there would be a constant game of phone-tag being played as it has been in the past. I think that e-mail allows teachers to respond to parent questions quickly and abruptly without having to spend much time thinking about it. It also allows parents and teachers to access each other when they would otherwise not be available.

How would you incorporate the ideas given by this school into your classroom?

I think that it would be a great idea to have a class website or blog. Just as the article states, there would be much less paper used by choosing to go this route. Instead of having to print the newsletter one created in Word, they could publish it in their blog or on their site. Also, one could post grades on the site using student ID#s. I also love the idea of having a web-recap of the day’s events. It is a good idea to just have your students go over what they learned that day to keep it fresh in their mind, but it also helps to have it somewhere that they can access it to remind them in case they forget. One last way I would use the class blog/website is to post homework. I know that students often do not write down what their homework assignment is and forget to do it. If the students could get into a routine of looking up their homework online each night, they would never forget.

Curtis, D. (2002, November, 1). A "fantastic super" use of technology: Closing the digital divide.. Edutopia, Retrieved November 07, 2008, from http://www.edutopia.org/fantastic-super-use- technology

Journal #7 - Calendars

Calendars are important in a classroom and to an educator in more ways than one. Using an online calendar can be helpful because a teacher will be able to access it in many different places, and they would be able to send it to a principal or substitute without having to give them their actual calendar or make copies. There are also many calendars that can print so that a teacher can hand-out paper copies if needed.

One thread I followed was about a new Facebook application that is called "StudyGroups". It allows people to create a group page with other classmates or colleagues and share information, chat, post pictures, graphs and even problems sets to work on. It also allows one to post due dates so that as a group, everyone stays on track. This seems like a great idea, however, I tried to use it on my own and there seem to still be some technical glitches to work out.

Another thread I followed was a teacher looking for a calendar that was larger than their outlook calendar and able to create a weekly lesson plan. I tried going to the websites of a few different suggestions and I found one that actually links one's lesson plans to state standards so that they are able to follow which standards they have taught throughout the semester. I thought that it would be a great way to stay on top of one's teaching and organization all in one.

Journal #6 - Inspiration & iMovie

Inspiration

1. I enjoyed the Inspiration program. I think that it was fairly simple to use. As for students, visual learners will most likely enjoy this type of program because it is straight-forward and they can see how each concept is interrelated. Also, the fact that one can convert their graphic organizer into an outline might help a student that is not so much of a visual learner.

2. In a math classroom, students could use a graphic organizer to focus on Algebra as a whole. They could start at the beginning of the school year with the idea of Algebra. As they learn a new concept, they will add it along with a sub-category for each concept with an example of a problem related to that concept and then a real-world application to the concept.

3. Even though I did not use Atomic Learning to learn Inspiration, I think it is a great tool. I am very much a "learn by doing" person, however, there are many shortcuts that one could learn by using Atomic Learning. After learning how to use the program on my own, I would love to now go back and use Atomic Learning to help me speed up the process of creating a graphic organizer in Inspiration.


iMovie


1. I greatly enjoyed the iMovie program. I thought it was much more user-friendly than I would have expected it to be. I know that students would absolutely love to use this program. Not only is it highly entertaining, but it is a great tool to help students learn concepts using their audio and visual perceptions.

2. In a math classroom, students could use iMovie to create videos on real-life math problems. They can show how math comes up in one's everyday life and how they are constantly, usually without realizing it, using math tools to solve problems.

3. I did not use Atomic Learning to learn to create my iMovie, but I am sure, once again, that it would be an efficient tool is aiding my learning. I learned how to to use iMovie through a tutorial from my instructor. This was very straight-forward and almost just like a video self-tutorial. Atomic Learning is a great aspect for learning, especially if there is little student-teacher shared class time for questions and/or explanations.

Journal #5 - Disrupting Class: Student-Centric Education Is the Future

The focus of this article is the idea that simply adding computers to a classroom will not create better test scores and more advanced students. Instead, adding these just creates a larger bill to pay and not many results. The idea of online learning comes into the article as well. Instead of just throwing computers into the classroom one needs to look at the issue as though there were no other alternative but to use the computers. In this case, we look at online courses. The new ideas with online courses are that one could take a course that is not normally available to them and even create a course that is tailored to the ways in which the student learns. We are all well aware as educators that students learn best in various different ways and by taking one lesson and catering to the different ways of learning we could better reach each and every student.

Do you agree or disagree with this way of implementing online courses?

To an extent, I agree with this idea because I think that it is extremely important to include all learning styles into a lesson. Students often tell me that they struggle learning concepts and previous teachers were unable to change the way they taught in order to tailor to these students. I feel as though more students would be successful in learning if they were able to learn in the way that they learn best. The only problem I have with this is that I believe learning through an online course is not a one hundred percent substitute for direct instruction, but rather a great complement. It definitely adds to the classroom experience but I do not think that it is a full replacement of the teacher.

How could a school begin to implement these practices?

I think that just as the article stated, by incorporating online classes for students who need to make up a class in order to graduate, or for home school students, a school could begin to implement. Also, rather than completely replacing a teacher, one could have a classroom full of computers, like suggested, and have a roaming teacher going around the room and assisting the students if they have any questions. By doing this, the class still has the guidance of a teacher, but they are able to learn in their own individual styles.

Christensen, C., & Horn, M. (2008, August/September). Disrupting class: Student-centric education is the future. Retrieved October 8, 2008, from Edutopia Web site: http://www.edutopia.org/student-centric-education-technology

Journal #4 - Text Unto Others...

This article focuses on the idea of being an appropriate and good digital citizen. Teaching students to become a good digital citizen is just like teaching a student to be an appropriate classmate or even “real life” citizen. These ideas can include things from remaining true to oneself on social networking sites, to properly addressing people in e-mails. The “9 Steps to Building a Good Digital Citizen” as written by Mike Ribble are an important factor that should be taught in every school, every grade and every class. Netiquette is also talked of in this article. The idea of having proper etiquette on the net is important because of the constant use of technology today. Most of these ideas all boil down to the fact that so many of our students today are using the web and social networking sites. There are so many problems that are brought up regarding these and by teaching students how to behave properly on the web just as we teach them how to behave properly face-to-face, there will be less of these issues.

How would you include ideas of digital citizenship and netiquette into your classroom?

One way that I would incorporate digital citizenship in my lesson plans would be to break down the “9 Steps to Building a Good Digital Citizen” month-by-month. Each month we could focus on one step and throughout the month we would do simple, but effective tasks that could help teach the students how to behave appropriately when using technology. By spreading awareness to one’s class, there is the possibility of it being spread throughout the school.

Why is becoming a good digital citizen important to you?

Becoming a good digital citizen is important just as it is important when one is face-to-face with a person. Without behaving appropriately, one will not be able to be successful in life. By learning to properly communicate, follow rules and laws, and present oneself, a person will be successful in all aspects of life and be a “model citizen” as they should be.

Villano, M (2008, September). Text unto others . . . as you would have them text unto you. Retrieved October 8, 2008, from T.H.E. Journal Web site: http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23225_6

Journal #3 - Who Are Today's Learners?

This article focused on the technological characteristics of students in today’s classrooms. It talked of the idea that teachers are often quick to judge their students as being “extremely techno-savvy” and also that students from low-income households are less technologically advanced than others. These ideas are followed by seven questions that are suggested to ask one’s students in order to better understand their current level of understanding in technology. I especially agreed with the suggestion that students might not be as technologically advanced as we may think, instead, it states, students are much more welcoming to technology and excited to learn and experience new things when it comes to technology. By embracing it as well as students do, we might be able to better understand and accept technology, especially in the classroom. The idea of informal learning also was brought up. This suggests that students may be more technologically advance because of their constant use of cell phones, social networking sites, and digital music. This way of learning how to use technology informally creates channel into more formal learning such as within the classroom. Lastly, students recommended that as teachers, we both engage and prepare students to use technology.

How has informal learning influenced the way you look and/or know technology?

Informal learning is a large part of how I become more technologically advanced each day. With the use of social networking sites and digital music, I am able to somewhat teach myself how to do things that I would have never dreamed of doing previously. Because of informal learning, I am much further technologically advanced than I would be without social networking sites and digital music, etc.

In what ways would you both prepare and engage your students with technology?

One way in which I would prepare my students for “the real world” using technology would be to create our own classroom social network. In this way, we could learn the appropriate uses of social networking websites and help students use them in order to further themselves after high school. One way I could engage my students would be to use computers for numerous different in-class activities. Not only does this allow students to learn different technological ideas, it also saves paper!

Greenhow, C. (2008).Who are today's learners?. Learning & Leading with Technology. 36, 16-17.

Journal #2 - WEB 2.0 Today's Technologies, Tomorrow's Learning

When reading this article, I found myself constantly thinking of ways to implement social networking into my teaching. I absolutely love how today's world makes use of technologies like the Internet to help spread word of numerous ideas, in this case, class lessons, questions, and information for students. It would be a dream to be able to use this 100% of the time and have everyone be able to properly use it but that is obviously not going to happen. This idea brings me to my first question:

1. How would one be able to implement this into their classroom and still be able to involve parents?
Parents are often wondering what goes on within a classroom and although newsletters, syllabi and notes home can get them the information they need, an up-to-the-minute source such as a social network would be a more significant tool for them. One way in which a teacher could implement this practice is through their school's Back-To-School Night. With parents in front of them, a teacher could show them a quick how-to on the network and have them each sign up. By keeping parents involved, students might be more involved as well.

2. In which ways would you be able to work around bumps in the road such as lack of student interest and lack of technology?
Like I mentioned before, parent involvement is key to student success. One way to keep students interested is to keep parents interested. If the parents have no interest, there is most likely less interest for students as well. At the high school level, I think that student suggestions would work as well. By receiving input from students regarding what their most-used social networking site is, a teacher could possibly use that one for their class because students are already familiar with the site.
The lack of technology problem could come into place within the students' homes. If the teacher was able to give a list of places that offer free computer and internet use, students might feel more comfortable with the idea of a classroom social network.


Groff, J., & Haas, J. (2008). Web 2.0: Today's technologies, tomorrow's learning. Learning & Leading with Technology. 36, 12-15.

Newsletter

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Introducing Jenna . . .

Hello class! My name is Jenna Albert and I currently live in Murrieta, CA. I grew up in Escondido, CA and attended elementary through high school there. I first went to North Broadway Elementary for K-2 grades. Next, I went to Rock Springs Elementary for 3-5. After elementary school I went to Rincon Middle and then on to Escondido High School where I graduated in 2004. From high school I came straight to CSUSM. I am currently in my final semester here trying to finish up my Bachelor's Degree in Economics. After I finish I plan on entering the credential program to get my Single Subject Credential in Mathematics.

I have been working with technology for many years now. I have to say that by default I am a PC person, but I am hoping that my next computer purchase will be a Mac. Technology is a large part of my everyday life. From school to work I am constantly signed on to e-mail and using different programs to get tasks done. I use Microsoft Office 2007 on my laptop computer and I have 2003 on my desktop so I am familiar with both.

One part of the College of Education Mission Statement that speaks to me is the idea of diversity. I currently work at San Marcos Adult School and Twin Oaks Continuation High School in San Marcos which allows me to work with a broad range of students from the ones that are behind in credits, working toward their diploma to the adults that never received their diploma. I think that by being able to speak to a diverse group of students, an educator is better prepared to succeed and allow their students to succeed.