Journey Into Teaching

Shakespeare in Popular Culture

jmf6828 — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:14:44 +0000

Georgia Educational Standards and More

jmf6828 — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 20:09:34 +0000

The Georgia Educational Standards website offers information and expectations for instruction, assessment, and student work for teachers. It provides guidelines that enable teachers to know the amount of instruction and assessment needed for students to achieve the determined standards for their grade level.

In addition to standards information, this website also offers frameworks for teachers to use in their lesson plans. These frameworks provide access to information regarding assessment and accountability, literature and writing, and grammar. By offering this valuable information in one location, the Georgia Standards website provides quick, convenient resources for teachers.

Media Literacy in the 21st Century Classroom

jmf6828 — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:45:48 +0000

This article, discussing media literacy, really reinforces the concepts we’re learning in our graduate classes. Twenty-first century students have access to more information through technology than previous generations. I completely agree with the statement that “students need to learn how to find what they need to know when they need to know it” (Media Literacy Org, 9). We as teachers need to show students how to analyze and evaluate the information they find so that they can be critical thinkers and determine its usefulness.

Wikipedia Versus Bound Encyclopedia

jmf6828 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:07:05 +0000

As I was researching the geranium plant with my MAT group, we made comparisons between the Wikipedia entry and those from the online Britannica website as well as the traditional bound encyclopedia. We found that the bound encyclopedia provided limited information based on scientific data and offered a black and white picture that didn’t convey the true essence of the flower.

In comparison, Wikipedia provided additional links with further, more specific information regarding the various types and uses of the flower, cultivation techniques, as well as its scientific information. This allows for further research on a particular topic regarding geraniums, which the bound edition did not offer.

Wikis: Reliable Source or Better for Collaboration?

jmf6828 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:37:54 +0000

After reading chapter 4 in our text, I feel like I have a better understanding on how Wiki sites work and the effect Wikipedia has on research. I will admit that before reading this chapter, I had no clue. I was familiar with the Wikipedia site but was always told not to use it as a credited source. I think that it could be used for quick information that may lead to further scholarly research, but I’m not sure if the academic world is ready to accept Wikipedia as a reliable source even though many students already use it for their research.

As a collaboration tool, I think it has a lot to offer. The ability to add and edit information provides students with an opportunity to work together to enhance their group projects. One of my favorite examples in this chapter describes how a high school teacher in Georgia used a Wiki site to connect her students with a class in Bangladesh. She labeled this as her “Flat Classroom” project, which relates to Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat concept. During this project, the students were able to work together in the same environment even though they were in different countries. This type of environment allows students to work on projects simultaneously and it offers the them the ability to share their work with a vast audience. I think any technology that can bring students from other countries together to work simultaneously is awesome and worth trying in the classroom.

Just a little humor for the afternoon…

jmf6828 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:41:18 +0000

Paths in Life

jmf6828 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:01:58 +0000

Where will your path lead you?

Weblogs in the Classroom: Adding Transparency and Collaborative Learning

jmf6828 — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:49:47 +0000

In his book Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts, Will Richardson discusses the importance for teachers and upcoming teachers to familiarize, learn, and use online technology, like Weblogs, in their classrooms. By using Weblogs, teachers and students are able to create an online class portal to communicate and display information about the class and course materials. This adds convenience and transparency for the parents and their children, which means that these materials are no longer restricted to the physical location of the classroom.

In addition to adding convenience and transparency, classroom Weblogs also create an opportunity for collaborate learning with others via the Internet. This opens a vast medium of knowledge and possibilities for students that would otherwise not be available if learning was limited solely to the classroom.

I completely agree with Richardson‘s concept of online collaborative learning. In chapter 2, he provides an example that I found to be very exciting for his class and potentially other students and readers. In the section titled Collaborative Space,he describes how his class utilized Weblogs as an online reading guide for the novel, The Secret Life of Bees written by Sue Monk Kidd. During this process, she would respond and follow the students’ reading and interpretations on their blog. This must have been an awesome experience for their class, which wouldn’t have occurred in just a classroom setting alone.

Officially a blogger!!

jmf6828 — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:58:10 +0000

Well, I’m officially a blogger. It only took a graduate course to push my technological limits and thrust me into cyber space. Normally, I would just call one of my sisters or Scicilian aunts to vent or comment on the news. Now, I’ll just tell them to check my blog!!