Edmiston

I thought what Edmiston did with drama was very interesting. I liked how they did a lot of role play and research to get students involved and creative. I think that this could be helpful in regards to imagination and literature. On the other hand, I'm not sure this would work any higher than 6th grade? I believe that students much older would not get into enough for the activity to be effective. I can't see high school students doing research outside the class or coming in with crafts going with the activity without being asked. Any ideas on how to light the same fire under older students with this project of drama?

Edmondson

Edmondson says in his article that "Teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students" who knew that this language was actually technology. I absolutely loved the whole idea in this article, it made me excited for my classroom in the future. I love the idea of setting the wiki up like a collaborative Facebook to use in a literary circle. I like that students still get to take turns with the jobs and that there is something required every night and in class; it gives a lot of opportunity for participation and learning.

I had one idea to add to this activity. I think I would give an extra credit option as well. If the students would like, as extra credit, I would ask them to keep a separate wiki page as a personal journal. This would be somewhere to reflect on the project and what they did and did not like. With this the student can learn more about themselves and I can learn things that can help me better the assignment.

Dail & Giles

I was interested in this article for two reasons. One, I LOVE The Hunger Games book and two, I really think that voice thread is a fun tool. Although I have not read the other book I really liked this project. I think asking the students to sum up both books using one creative and individual image is an excellent way to introduce new technological issues. The article laid it out perfectly. We live in a society that is increasingly technology based and students need to be able to analyze and work with that technology. This assignment gives them that basis in a new way. I love it and would definitely use it!

Hybrid courses

One thing that really stuck out to me in the readings from this week was the idea of hybrid courses in high school. I was surprised when I read that these hybrid courses were offered in high school because I thought that they were referring to college. I really do not know how to feel about this idea. Does it have significant benefits over coming to school everyday? I really don't see how it could. And would the students actually show up on the days they're suppose to? Maybe still living at home would help attendance unlike in college. And would students still feel as obligated to do their schoolwork when they're spending half the time in the actual classroom as before? This idea is very intriguing to me and even though I'm not sure it would have benefits or really work I think that it would be interesting to look into more.

Rice

I found the article by Mary Rice to be very interesting. I had never thought to use more graphic novels in the classroom because I was always one of those people who just thought of them as easy and not appropriate for the classroom. Personally, I had never had experience with a graphic novel in a classroom setting until my third year of college in a 400 level English class. I thought the graphic novel was very entertaining but it was strange to have pictures in my book again.

I would not have thought of the difficulties before this article but they all make sense. Most of these comic like stories do seenu academically inappropriate. I do think that it may be worth it in a broken down sense. I believe these works would be helpful for ELL and slower readers because of the accompaniment of pictures but I believe it may be too much hassle to teach then to a whole class.

Is the time and money spent outside the classroom worth a lesson that the student could possibly miss?

Barcelona!

I spent my spring break in Barcelona with the Special Education department and I wanted to share an interesting fact with you guys! In Barcelona, undergrads studying education take an exam much like our praxis. The difference is their exam score makes or breaks them! You are hired solely on that test score after you graduate. You do not send a resume or get an interview; you just need a good test score! After you have been hired by a school you then have a probational period where if you make a mess up the school can fire you on the spot! In the case that you are fired you are only permitted to attempt to teach at one other school! If you have two mess ups in probational periods when you are starting out you can no longer teach! Interesting, huh?

Grr..

I just wanted to blog about one of my educational pet peeves, email. I emailed one of professors a week ago asking about a very important assignment in class and I never heard back from him. He has sent out two group emails to the whole class though! I sent him a second email just reminding him that I'm waiting on his response, but once again still haven't heard back. My advisor has done the same thing. I will email him about scheduling questions and I will never hear back from him!

I understand that professors have lives just like the students do but I feel like there should be a time frame that you have to answer students in. I believe it is unfair to leave them hanging for a week and after two emails. I have plans to one day teach at the university level and I know that I personally feel like I have to have a certain system set up to make sure I get every email answered in a timely fashion! Any one else have problems with this?

Shafer

I could not decide how I felt about the Shafer reading on literate movies. The teacher in the article take five weeks and lets their students take an author, story, or event and portray it through a movie. At first, I loved the idea because it was a new and creative way to look at literature. Then I started to change my mind. Are all five weeks solely devoted to this project? The students can pick any topic which makes the five weeks very unstructured, you could only really give class time for the project. Then it was mentioned that class time was used to learn how to work the video camera and how to edit. Is this worth it? That most certainly is not in the curriculum and takes up a lot of time that could be devoted to literature.

I like the idea of this project because its a new spin on just a normal research paper but is it worth the time and energy? Is it worth taking time out of the class to devote to the teaching of video camera and production? I'm not convinced.

Further Research

I wanted to discuss what I had learned in my for further research assignment from Monday. The article that I read was about texting and literacy and the results of a study found that students who text in "textese" language, or the abbreviations, could have better literacy because the learn more about phonetics than they realize. When they are sounded out words to make abbreviations they are learning word and letter sounds and how they fit together. I was not completely convinced about this finding and wanted to get your opinions!

Chapter 3: Wikis

I loved the reading off of D2L for this week. I knew the basics to blogs and wikis but I liked reading more in depths about them. I had no idea what a digital story was though so it was interesting to learn about that.

I really liked the idea of the wikis actually. I had never thought of all the possible things they could be used for because I have never really used one before. This class is the first time I have ever used one for a class! This chapter had a lot of excellent ideas for ways to use wikis in the classroom. I loved the idea of the teacher having a wiki with all the things the students might need to print off if they lose anything. I also like having the wiki open to parents so that they know what their children are doing and also have a way to put their input in on things happening in the classroom! Parent involvement is always important.

Literature circles

We did literature circles in my American literature 2 class this week. Normally, I love literature circles because we did them in Young Adult Lit but in this specific class I did not really think that it worked. We were not in even groups which meant for my group, who only had 4, that one person had to do multiple jobs. It was helpful to talk over the novel in my small group but when we came together as a class it did not work. We did not really go through every job or topic we came up with. This taught me that literature circles are a really useful tool but they require a lot of organization and teacher direction. In my class the students just kind did whatever because we are in college but I did not feel like it was a useful way to down our time.

The Book Report, Version 2.0

I absolutely loved this reading for the ideas it gives a future teacher for the class. I don't have any experience with podcasts besides knowing generally what they are so I had no idea how to bring it into the classroom. I loved the idea of doing a book report, but the musical aspect is what I really like. Kids always love music, no matter what genre, which is an easy way to get students more involved in the work. The podcast work was extremely creative from the setup, theme, music, and commercial interruptions. I can't wait to actually work with them to extend my knowledge so that I can create my own interesting lesson plans.

Some People Might Say

I wanted to blog about the some people might say activity we did in class last night because I absolutely love it! I believe that in class a lot of students are apprehensive to raise their hand and answer or discuss for their fear of being wrong. I believe that this activity takes that away. The student can read and discuss based off what other people say so they no longer have to fear if they are wrong. I think this is a great way to spark discussion and get all of your students participating in class!

Shakespeare

I am taking the Intro to Shakespeare course this semester and thought that it was going to be terribly tedious because its Shakespeare. The class actually is not bad. Pitard analyzes the plays in a way that I never have before which actually makes you understand what Shakespeare is saying. I hope that I can do this for my students if I ever teach high school because when you actually understand what Shakespeare is saying the plays do not seem to confusing and boring anymore!

TPCK

When I was reading through "Extending the conversation: New Technologies, New Literacies, and English Education" by Swenson et al. I was surprised that the topic of TPCK came up because that is something I have learned about before. I like the idea of TPCK. This approach asks that you first focus on the pedagogy and the content for your lesson, then once those parts are worked out look to the technology. After you have the basis of the content and lesson you try to gear some kind of technology into the lesson. And you do not simply add technology just because you can; you want to add technology to improve the lesson. I believe this is an excellent approach to adding technology into your classroom effectively!

Phonetics

I am taking Intro to Linguistics this semester and were working on phonetics this week. Phonetics is such a basic idea that I am surprised that I don't remember ever learning it when I was younger. It's actually a lot of fun to learn once you get over the idea that you look silly always talking out loud. I think it would be fun for the kids to have a unit on it in the upper level classes because it is fun.

Short

I really enjoyed the reading in the Kist book this week! I loved that fact that the "short" chapter was packed full of activity ideas for the classroom. These activities were really interesting too! The one that I liked because it can apply to any classroom, and not just for use of different literacies, was the snapshot or tableaux drama activity. In this activity the students have to portray a scene or poem etc. in front of the class using their body. Kist pointed out that after this activity the students got a lot more comfortable opening up in the classroom environment which is always an important thing to establish!

Introduction

Hey guys, I am Stephanie Landram.

I am a Senior here at Slippery Rock University, but on the five year track. I actually spent my first two years of college as a Biology major! I made the best decision when I changed my major to English Education though because I absolutely love reading and books. I would love to teach middle school and eventually make my way to a professor, I think. I am in a sorority here at Slippery Rock named Alpha Omicron Pi and am also a member of Colleges Against Cancer. If you see the little bright orange, my favorite color, car driving around campus I am guilty of driving it and people normally associate me with my car more than anything. I like meeting new people so if you want to know anything just ask!