Last week, my partner, Caroline, and I did our presentation on the web tool, Delicious. To recap, Delicious is a social bookmarking site where you can practically find anything you want to use in your classroom. It's really cool and simple because Delicious organizes your bookmarks for you. Practically, all you add to do was save and share. A few things I learned from my web 2.0 experience is that in order to create a good, solid wiki page, you must be willing to put in quite a bit of time and effort. I don't want to say I'm a perfectionist, because I don't feel like I am, but I like to do things thoroughly. So, I spent a lot of time editing and re-editing our page to make sure we met the rubric and also to check that the steps we posted were clear and concise. Furthermore, the process of doing the presentation gave me a bit of practice with public speaking and in-class presentations. Overall though, the web tool activity was a good experience. I didn't really have any problems with this activity. I guess just finding the bookmarks and tags I wanted was the most problematic. Still, I felt like my partner and I worked well, and it also gave me a bit of practice with various skills that will be useful, not only in the classroom but just later on in my career.
If I had to do it again, I might practice rehearsing a little bit, even though it's a short presentation. I don't really like speaking in front of a large group of people, but I must learn how to do it well because I'm going to be a teacher and I need to learn how to speak to a group of students. Also, as a teacher, I would assign a type of web-tool presentation to my students so I could expose them to the various types of web tools out there and how they are being used. I would also use this project as an exercise in group work. I think that collaboration is a skill that we all need to develop, and the younger students can learn to effectively work well together, the better.
Now to move onto the inquiry based activity. Last night, I was up late working on my IBA activity. Granted, I probably spent more time than I should have on the technical, nitpicky aspects of it, but it's done and I am proud of it. One of the struggles I had with this project was that the subject I had initially started out with I couldn't really execute in my work. When I started the beginning phases of the IBA activity, I wanted to do a literacy worksheet for struggling readers. Unfortunately, I couldn't really find any games or lesson plans that I could model for my worksheet. Also, I think that for a preservice student, trying to create a worksheet for struggling readers is really challenging. As I went through the state curriculum standards, I kept going back to middle school reading. It's good that I decided to go with 6th reading, because I felt like it was easier to complete than literacy.
For my IBA project, I used Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "The Raven." Although the worksheet appeared challenging, I tried to make it engaging and productive for students using various methods and technology. Some of the standards I wanted to target in the worksheet was reading strategies via reading aloud and paired reading. I also wanted to introduce literary texts (e.g. "The Raven") and use literary mapping as an interactive tool that would help students improve their analyzation and comprehension skills. One of take-aways from this project is the process of using various technological tools in the classroom. For me, I think that technology is becoming so vital in the classroom because it brings what you're teaching to life. In short, technology is just another medium that connects difficult subjects to your students' lives.
As a teacher, I think that this IBA activity will change the mold of worksheet format for my students. When I was in school, we had to use worksheets for countless activities, especially for classes such as english and french. In applying the IBA activity with my students, I would allow them to complete the worksheet in a digital format. That way, if they couldn't afford to print the worksheet out, they could just email it to me. Also, I think that because the IBA activity is digital, it would be a good way to collaborate between me and my students. If my students needed help on a certain question, they could ask me via email and show me where in the worksheet they were struggling. I think that as far as professional application is concerned, I would use future IBA activities for my students in the classroom, but at the same time save them as examples to share with colleagues.
Despite the tedious hours of researching lesson plans, modeling certain games and activities, and making sure I met both the state and net standards, I felt like this worksheet project was greatly rewarding. It's nice to see a cumulation of all your hard work and know that it can potentially help and entertain your students. I really appreciate the examples that were posted online. It really helped to me generate ideas for my own project and see the different tools people used. I'm saying this with a grain of salt, but I'm really looking forward to completing similar projects in the future. I just think that in the future I would spend even more time preparing by being thorough with lesson plans and pouring over state standards. Plus, I would probably form a more concrete idea or concept ahead of time to save myself some headaches. It definitely helps to be prepared.
If I had to do it again, I might practice rehearsing a little bit, even though it's a short presentation. I don't really like speaking in front of a large group of people, but I must learn how to do it well because I'm going to be a teacher and I need to learn how to speak to a group of students. Also, as a teacher, I would assign a type of web-tool presentation to my students so I could expose them to the various types of web tools out there and how they are being used. I would also use this project as an exercise in group work. I think that collaboration is a skill that we all need to develop, and the younger students can learn to effectively work well together, the better.
Now to move onto the inquiry based activity. Last night, I was up late working on my IBA activity. Granted, I probably spent more time than I should have on the technical, nitpicky aspects of it, but it's done and I am proud of it. One of the struggles I had with this project was that the subject I had initially started out with I couldn't really execute in my work. When I started the beginning phases of the IBA activity, I wanted to do a literacy worksheet for struggling readers. Unfortunately, I couldn't really find any games or lesson plans that I could model for my worksheet. Also, I think that for a preservice student, trying to create a worksheet for struggling readers is really challenging. As I went through the state curriculum standards, I kept going back to middle school reading. It's good that I decided to go with 6th reading, because I felt like it was easier to complete than literacy.
For my IBA project, I used Edgar Allan Poe's poem, "The Raven." Although the worksheet appeared challenging, I tried to make it engaging and productive for students using various methods and technology. Some of the standards I wanted to target in the worksheet was reading strategies via reading aloud and paired reading. I also wanted to introduce literary texts (e.g. "The Raven") and use literary mapping as an interactive tool that would help students improve their analyzation and comprehension skills. One of take-aways from this project is the process of using various technological tools in the classroom. For me, I think that technology is becoming so vital in the classroom because it brings what you're teaching to life. In short, technology is just another medium that connects difficult subjects to your students' lives.
As a teacher, I think that this IBA activity will change the mold of worksheet format for my students. When I was in school, we had to use worksheets for countless activities, especially for classes such as english and french. In applying the IBA activity with my students, I would allow them to complete the worksheet in a digital format. That way, if they couldn't afford to print the worksheet out, they could just email it to me. Also, I think that because the IBA activity is digital, it would be a good way to collaborate between me and my students. If my students needed help on a certain question, they could ask me via email and show me where in the worksheet they were struggling. I think that as far as professional application is concerned, I would use future IBA activities for my students in the classroom, but at the same time save them as examples to share with colleagues.
Despite the tedious hours of researching lesson plans, modeling certain games and activities, and making sure I met both the state and net standards, I felt like this worksheet project was greatly rewarding. It's nice to see a cumulation of all your hard work and know that it can potentially help and entertain your students. I really appreciate the examples that were posted online. It really helped to me generate ideas for my own project and see the different tools people used. I'm saying this with a grain of salt, but I'm really looking forward to completing similar projects in the future. I just think that in the future I would spend even more time preparing by being thorough with lesson plans and pouring over state standards. Plus, I would probably form a more concrete idea or concept ahead of time to save myself some headaches. It definitely helps to be prepared.
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