Digital Stories

What?-
Dave and I dicussed and did some final adjustments to our script and plan for our digital stories. We didn't meet in class, but worked together through email and google documents.

So What?-
Learning how to put together a digital story is going to improve my teaching so much. I have all these ideas for future units and lesson plans, and now that I can create digital stories, I feel like my ideas are going to be supported so much more effectively for my visual learners. Teaching Enlgish is exciting because we get to read and discuss emotional topics. Digital stories are going to compliment these texts so well and make for an even more successful learning experience for all types of learners in my classes. I really think that I will use digital stories the most in my poetry units because imagery is such a huge element of poetry and being able to make those images come alive for my students is going to be such an awesome special effect and learning tool.

Now what?-
I am pretty set on having one fo my assessments for my classes be a digital story performance assessment. I really want to have my students create digital stories in small groups so that they can show what they got out of a novel, poetry or unit by creating a interesting digital story. This will not only help them to show their knowledge, but they will work on communication and group skills as well. I co-teach right now and students really love creating any kind of presentation in the computer lab. I feel like digital stories are so much more interactive and fun than a powerpoint or slide show so my kids will really love the assignment. Now that I have learned how to use the softwear, it will be that much easier to guide my students through a fun and creative assessment. I really just want to do my best to teach as many different kinds of discourse in my classroom, and technology is a huge tool for discourse in our present culture. Another great thing about this assignment has been bouncing ideas off of Dave. He is going to be a great teacher and we have a lot of the same interests within the English content. I hope to keep in contact with him throughout our careers because he will be such a great friend and influence in my career.

Copyright Response

What?

This week we learned about copyright laws and options. This assignment was a group assignment and we all studied a certain topic about copyright and then shared the information.

So What?

This is a very important lesson for future teachers because we will be dealing with a lot of information when we are teaching in our classes, and we need to know how to properly and rightfully present the information we use. Copyright and plagiarism is a very serious situation when it comes to presenting and using information that is not ours. As teachers we need to show our students how to give credit to the source and present information without breaking laws. Knowing correct copyright laws is crucial to presenting efficiently and safely in our classrooms.

Now What?

I know that learning all of this copyright information is going to change my teaching dramatically because I will have to be more efficient in citing my sources and information when presenting it, as well as making sure that I have credible sources. Making sure that I cite things correctly and do not break any laws will take a lot more time than just throwing slides and information together without working about copyright. This will be a pain in the ass, but in the end it will be a lot more beneficial and safe for my classroom. Teaching by example is one of the best ways to teach, and if my students can see me citing and presenting information correctly hopefully it will carry over for them.

Vidcast Response

Dave and I decided to name our vidcast Grammarville Animated Grammar Lesson Series One: Comma Rules. We named it this because our series will be covering grammar rules for our future English classes. Our series will continue on to cover all of our grammar rules throughout the school year by using creative characters and dialogue to intrigue our students in our classrooms. The state core curriculum that our vidcast will fall under is:

Objective 3
(Revision and Editing): Revise and edit to strengthen ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency and conventions.

• Correct use of commas to set off appositives.

We chose to do our vidcast with the theme/topic of grammar because students tend to find grammar boring and lose focus and motivation while learning it. We hope that this will be a new and entertaining way to learn grammar rules and concepts by creating silly characters and dialogue to view in our classes. We really focused on making it entertaining, but yet very beneficial to our students. Hopefully students will pay attention and it will simplify grammar for them throughout the school year.

This vidcast would fit into the INSTASC Standards: 1. Discipline Knowledge, 2. Developmental Knowledge, 3. Instructional Adaptability, 4. Instructional Variety, and 7. Instructional Planning. All of these INSTASC Standards cover being knowledgeable about your content and curriculum; while finding creative and a variety of ways to present and teach them. Our vidcast shows variety and our knowledge on the subject of grammar and comma usage. This assignment also covers all of the NET standards, which are: NETS S:The skills and knowledge students need to learn effectively and live productively in a digital world., NETS T:The skills and knowledge educators need to change the way they teach, the way they work, and the way they learn in an increasingly connected global and digital society., and NETS A:The skills and knowledge school administrators and leaders need to lead and sustain a culture that supports digital-age learning, builds a vision for technology infusion, and transforms the instructional landscape. Our vidcast uses all these NET standards and teaches students in a digital environment. This assignment really challenged us as future teachers, because it forced us to use the digital world to teach a grammar lesson. This makes us even more marketable and valuable as teachers because students today are so involved and active in digital environments.

I really plan on using this series in my future classroom. I truly believe that it will be an effective and fun way for students to interact with grammar and hopefully it will keep them focused and entertained as well. The only problem I see with using the series is the time it will take to create more grammar lessons. Making this vidcast was incredibly time consuming and difficult; I can only hope it gets easier with time. If I can make creating these vidcasts a quicker process now that I have one made, I truly think that it would be a huge asset to my teaching and classroom.

WEEK 6: Vidcasts

What?-

This week in class we were instructed on how to create a vidcast of for our classes. Dave and I got to brainstorm during class time and create our plan of attack to complete this assignment. Our cooperating teacher wants us to create a grammar vidcast dealing with coma rules. We are going to create the most bad ass vidcast and of course it will be funny.

So What?-

This vidcast training is going to be an awesome addition to my teaching style. I am excited to create our vidcast and mess around with all of the technical dynamics of it so that I can create more vidcasts in the future. Grammar is pretty lame to learn and even teach sometimes, so I think that making entertaining vidcasts will really help my classes and I get through some of the technical parts or writing. I also think that my colleagues can benefit from my vidcasts because I can share them with them or visa versa if they create great lesson plans and grammar exercises too. Sharing lesson plans and ideas is something that I am excited to do as a new teacher. I find it so interesting to see how other teachers teach certain parts of the curriculum because I can gather or build off of their ideas. I also think vidcasts will be something that makes me valuable as a new teacher because it will be able to tap into so many different kinds of students and learning styles.

Now What?-

I know that students these days are very big on technology and media in their personal and learning lives. They will love vidcasts in my classroom, I know it! I am truly so excited to get in the classroom and I feel that learning all of this technology that I can use in my classroom makes me that much more confident that I will be a great teacher. I observe a lot of teachers at the school I work at, and I always find it so interesting to see how much more involved in learning the students are in the classrooms that have technology used in them in some way, shape or form. Students love youtube.com and teachers that use their students interest in youtube.com as an advantage in their classroom really get a great reception from their students. I hope to help teachers in my English department at my future school use more technology in their lesson plans because I think that students will love our style and we will have more students getting involved in reading and writing. I really am just pumped to finally get to work and teach!

WEEK 5: Podcasts

WHAT?-

This week Dave and I got to make a podcast for our future classes. We chose to do it on smoking and smokeless tobacco to inform our students of the dangers and risks of these products.

SO WHAT?-

I think that learning to make a podcast is going to be a fun and effective tool for me to use in the future; especially on the webpage I am making for my classes. Dave and I had so much fun writing the script and recording it for our pages. In English classes our kids do so much reading, I think that any kind of language, written or verbal, is effective. Podcasts are very popular with this new generation of learners and I am excited to know how to create and manage my own podcasts. Technology is very receptive with high school students and if I can make my podcasts entertaining and informative, I think that they will be a big hit in the future for me as a teacher.

NOW WHAT?-

I think that I will give homework assignments using podcasts. This way my students will have my voice recorded and they can listen to the assignment and instructions over and over again if they need it repeated. I think that writing an assignment down is one way to instruct the curriculum, but even giving it verbally can be an effective learning and teaching strategy as well. I also think that I will have students do mini lessons and record them so that after they present they can be on my classroom website to be replayed and reviewed by all the students. I really think that podcasts can be an great and entertaining way to share and record information. I am excited about using podcasts in my future as a teacher.

Week 4: UEN

After exploring and using the UEN website, I think adding its options to my classroom google site will really benefit me as a teacher. I have realized that the UEN website has a lot to offer my future classroom and students. I love that the core curriculum is right at my students, their parents and my fingertips. Following the core curriculum is a very important asset to my teaching methods and I know that I will refer to it a lot on my web page. UEN has so many options for research as well, and I love that. Since research and information is such an essential part of my core curriculum, I know that we will be using UEN a lot so my students can find reliable sources.

Another great thing about the UEN website is that they have lesson plans I can refer to for ideas and use for teaching. Sometimes it is nice to compare ideas or build from other teachers lesson plans and teaching methods. I usually look over lesson plans and don't like them completely, but I can find a few great ideas to apply to my personal lesson plans. This is a really good resource, especially for a new teacher like me. The lesson plans are really useful too because they apply to utah state core curriculum.

I absolutely love the interactives because they have grammar, vocabulary and spelling games that my students can play. A lot of high school students need these kind of visual games to use because grammar is such a hated trade for students. I hope to use a lot of online grammar, vocabulary and spelling quizzes for my classes because the visual and technology helps a little with making it a little more of an enjoyable activity. Kids seriously hate this part of my core and I will be honest, when the kids hate it isn't the most fun to teach. Hopefully the interatives from the UEN site can make it a little more bearable.

Pioneer library is a pretty cool option that UEN offers teachers. It actually found some interesting things while exploring this part of the assignment. I am totally going to SIRS over Google for research for my students when we research. I love how it targets their learning level for the information they are searching for. It is true that a lot of information on the Google is beyond their learning level and they have a good chance of using a website or information that is not as reliable of a source as the the sources they can find in the Pioneer Library. Even thought I wasn't pumped about UEN because of comments I have heard about it; I am extremely surprise with how much of it I will apply to my teaching and classrooms. I am overall pleased with the part of UEN this assignment covered.

Week 2

What?

This week we learned how to use different options that google has to offer. I really think that google docs and google sites will be a huge tool in my classroom in the future. One of our first big assignments was introduced and this week we are creating our rough draft of the letter we will send to a faculty member at a local school. In this letter Dave and I will be asking them if we can create a podcast for their classroom.

So what?

Learning about all these google options is going to give me so many awesome tools as a teacher. A lot of students are technology driven and having them use computers and google programs will hopefully catch an interest. Being able to run these programs as a teacher will make it easier for students to learn digitally and I think it will really improve the motivation in any modern classroom.

Also, I really liked the idea of having them use google docs to collaborate online with their classmates. High school kids would really eat that assignment up, being that they are always texting and using instant messengers on their free time anyway. Why not include these hobbies in our education and have kids enjoy online working environments? I am already thinking of fun activities and assignments I can create to take advantage of what I am learning in instructional media.

Now what?

I honestly think that using google docs, sites and even the calendar will make me a more efficient and responsible teacher. If I can keep my calendar up to date it will be easier to not only direct my students with an agenda, but also help my colleagues and I track what I have been doing in my classroom throughout the year. These programs will minimize the amount of paper and supplies I will have to use in my classroom, while also making grading and assignment management easier. Organization can be one of the hardest and most time consuming responsibilities as a teacher; I am hoping that learning how to use these programs properly and thoroughly will help to cut this time down and leave me more time for lesson plans and individual work with students.

Learning all these new strategies for teaching has really opened my eyes to new ideas and options as a teacher. I honestly cannot wait to exercise these new tools in my classroom and hopefully they will catch my students interest in my English class by using modern technology and digital learning to motivate them to read and write. English is a subject that a lot of kids do not enjoy because it is challenging and considered boring, I will take advantage of any skill or strategy to spice up my subject and classroom!