Reflection on the NYSCATE Experience 2006 - Final Project

Here's the URL for those of you who would like to check out mine and Tracie's website reflecting our experience at the NYSCATE seminar.

I definitely became more adept at working on a website and was able work with iMovie and iPhoto more. Most importantly, I learned how crucial and timely the conversation is that we have been having in 506. Though many of us have not seen a lot of these technologies and ideas in action in classrooms, I think that time may be coming soon...even if we are the ones to introduce it!

I would like to learn if there is a way to compress an iMovie to fit on the web, without making the Quicktime viewer only a few inches big. I would also like to learn how to filter out background noise in movies when you only have one integrated file from a digital camera. Is that possible? A few of our movie clips were a little hard to hear/understand because we could not find a way to separate the audio to delete other people's voices and/or background noise.

I can see any student creating a website to reflect what they have learned in almost any given unit. It would be a nice alternative to a poster or paper as a culminating project. They could work on it throughout the unit to use it to solidify their understanding of the topic. They could also link a blog to the site, which would facilitate communication among the students and teacher. A website can be tailored to suit so many different purposes and needs, the possibilities are almost endless.

I would like to add more examples of how each of the workshops' tips could be tailored to the secondary ELA classroom. As we discussed during our presentation, a few of the workshops seemed more applicable to the younger age range, but I am sure that if we put our minds to it we could find ways to alter them to work for us and our colleagues.

Not that this is possible now, I wish that we had taken more pictures and more footage, but with technical difficulties it was impossible at the time.

Let me know what you guys thought.

P.S. Larissa, the grant page was just for you! There appears to be a lot of assistance to be had, as long as you know where to look.

Undergrad in English or Education, pros and cons

Hello All,

I just wanted to thank those of you who saw my post regarding the ATS-W and offered kind words of support and encouragement. Karen made an important comment regarding the background information that is assumed we have: "Some of the areas of uncertainty you share here would typically not be addressed in an MAT program w/a focus on Eng. Education. These topics are often addressed in intro to ed courses on the undergraduate level".

Up until this point, I was glad that I did my bachelors in English, and not Eduction. But now I am not so sure it was the smartest thing. With all of the discussion we have had regarding the death of literature as we know it in the classrooms, all of the content knowledge that many of us have gained through our undergraduate studies in English may have less value than we hoped. Though I loved my time at Ithaca College reading a wide variety of classics and modern pieces of literature, I am wishing now, about to embark on my student teaching experience, I had more knowledge of the foundations of education. It is ironic and sad that we have all taken a course of this title, yet feel like we know almost nothing of the subject!

Are there any key resources you know of that I should check out to acquire this base level of knowledge that I would have received if I had been an education undergrad?

Final Reflection

An Increased Sense of Conflict

Upon reflecting on my experiences in 506 and various classroom settings, I have only felt the divide increase between what I have learned and what is practiced in schools today. As technology expands our possible audience (the entire world) and avenues for meaningful discourse (multimodal, global classrooms), I have realized the power the study of English has to reflect, analyze, and evaluate the state of the world as a whole (including ethics and politics). Though these realizations have changed what I believe the study of English has the power to accomplish, I have not seen these opportunities being explored in the classrooms I have observed and substituted in.

The mere presence of the discourse included in the three articles from CITE is encouraging, yet the discussion still feels like it is only being held by a chosen few and is still in the process of being disseminated among the common populous of educators (both student and teacher educators). The simple fact that 506 is the only class where technology is incorporated in our education reflects the fact that this mode of instruction is not fully accepted and endorsed by the educational world as a whole. Why are teacher education programs shying away from this essential component of teacher education? Similarly, why aren’t in-service teachers required to attend professional development conferences that endorse technology use to develop and enhance (multimodal) literacy skills?

When will we stop merely discussing the value technology has to offer education, and actually live what we have been theorizing? This brings me to the recent developments on Chris’ blog. Though I question the timing and mode of raising the essential issue that Chris posited in his letter to his colleagues, the defensive response that they (supposedly his colleagues) took exemplifies the discomfort that many in-service teachers feel about the ‘new breed’ of educators that are about to enter or have recently entered the field. Instead of embracing the new appearance of effective pedagogy, many are taken aback that current methods are in question. As history suggests and as we are experiencing, change is never comfortable or easy.

This brings me back full-circle, and supports my feeling that I have only become more apprehensive about entering the field, since completing this course. I am worried that I will have difficultly maneuvering the treacherous terrain between maintaining the status quo as a “survival strategy” and remaining true to my vision of what English can be, do, and offer to every student (Kelly 64).

An appropriate aside; even Microsoft Word does not acknowledge that there may be several different types of literacy (it insists that ‘literacies’ is a typo)! The acceptance of multiple forms of literacy, which has only increased with the prevalence of technology in our society, has not reached many areas of popular culture.

Is common sense enough?

Hello All,

Were there any other of you (besides Jack, Tracie and I) that took the ATS-W yesterday? If so, I don't know how you feel, but I think that test was atrocious! I went into the test feeling completely confident (especially after doing well, at least I think, on the LAST in the morning) about the situation. But after about 10 questions on the ATS-W, I felt like I was going to have a panic attack! There were so many questions where at least two of the answer options seemed right, and could have easily been justified responses. I wish I could get a copy of this test, so I could see what everyone else thought or would do about these possible situations. I am worried that so many of the real-life situations that we will encounter in the field have not been addressed in the program (dealing with ELL's, conducting parent-teacher conferences, dealing with administration, or realizing after the fact that your lesson plan was 'boring', etc.)!

Luckily, the essay addressed strategies that could be used to satisfy a district's requirement that students learn to use technology effectively and appropriately! I was sure of that (thanks to 506) but the rest, I just don't know. I am terrified that I either did well (a lucky guesser after narrowing down to two answers) or have failed, and I have never felt that way about anything in my academic career!

If you guys have already taken the ATS-W, what did you think about your exam? Did you feel prepared or did you feel the same as me, that many of the responses were appropriate, but you can obviously only fill in one bubble? If I do fail, will it go on my academic record FOREVER, or will I just have to retake it? I am just feeling horrible, because I even did the practice exam and did well!

If I do pass, how will I ever learn the 'right' response to the many situations posed in the exam? It scares me that I may enter the field with only common sense in my arsenal, when I would really appreciate a foundation of theory or at least best practices. HELP?!?!

I love ESL!!!

Hello All,

Wednesday night I took a job to fill in for an ESL teacher at IHS. Though I was anxious about my abilities to actually help this very diverse group of students, their high level of respect and dedication reassured and comforted me. Here's a brief rundown of the day:

2nd period: CAS (content area supervision) class. There were about 7 kids in this class, all with different levels English speaking ability. I spent the period helping each student with homework from their other classes (math and history were the main subjects I needed to help them with). All they needed most of the time was for me to reword or describe a question for them. They understood the work, but just needed help understanding what the teacher wanted them to do. I helped explain the concept of ratio and also helped a student with the Pythagorean theorem (I was proud that I even remembered that stuff). A great period!

3rd and 4th period: ESL III. These students were almost fluent, but were still working on complete mastery of the language. We completed a game of jeopardy on Romeo and Juliet (which they had just finished reading). This class had such an attention to detail - they created the questions themselves and one of them asked how many teeth the nurse had...and they remembered (4)!?!?! They had so much fun trying to define and identify the part of speech of obscure Shakespearean words. Some of the sentences they came up with for these words were so funny (most the time correct, but still funny). It was great and they all really enjoyed it, all the while proving they really understood the play (and the language).

6th and 7th period: ESL I. This was a class of students who were at the beginning levels of using the language. There were two sisters from Burma who had only been in the States for 1 month! I cannot even imagine the frustration of going to a school where you have hardly any idea of what is being said and being unable to even communicate confusion! These students are so brave and courageous to be coming to school everyday, trying to learn in a language that is completely foreign to them. Luckily for the two sisters, there was another girl from Burma who had been in the States for almost two years and she helped serve as a translator to ensure understanding. This class was fabulous and they were all so understanding and compassionate! We spent the two periods working out of a workbook similar to those I used to learn Spanish. After we finished the tasks the teacher had planned, we still had few minutes left and I asked if they would mind sharing their stories with me. They were delighted to do so. There were students from S. Korea, Burma, Japan, China, and West Africa (none of them spoke Spanish...the only other language I am sort of fluent in). Many of them had been in the country for less than 1 year. Most came to the States for education...for their parents, many of which attended Cornell. They liked the States and many said they had no desire to move back to their native countries.

When they were sharing their stories (at many times struggling to find the correct words to explain their feelings to me), I was awestruck by their perseverance and willingness to tell me everything. I do not think I would ever be strong enough to completely immerse myself in a country where I would essentially lose my voice due to language barriers. Voice is so closely linked with identity and it would be terrifying to be unable to communicate concerns, questions, desires, interests, or any basic level of communication. When I apologized for being so new at the situation, they went out of their way to say I was doing fine. They were very concerned with how I felt, when really they were the ones who were going up against great odds in pursuit of education. They were a wonderful group and I would be honored to be able to work with them again. It was one of the best days I have had yet and I miss them already. I am going to investigate opportunities to volunteer to help ESL students and adults - I think I may have found my calling.

These classes increased my disgust and concern over testing ESL students in English after one year (see post from earlier in semester). I doubt that any of us would be able to perform well on a test in a language we had only been introduced to the year before. Have any of these legislators even tried to empathize with this population's experience?

Trudging Through...

So it is officially almost the end of the semester and I am as tired as ever. Having recently realized that I have blogged nowhere near enough, I am making a last chance attempt at recovering my grade. I have worked so hard in this class (iMovie, in particular) and would hate to receive a less than stellar grade just because of my blogging habit (or lack thereof).

Tracie and I spent an entire day over the break trying to sift through everything that we experienced at the NYSCATE conference. After almost 8 hours of work, we have only partially completed 2 out of 7 pages. We tried to upload a Windows Movie Maker file of the interviews that we conducted while at the conference, but after a very long time of attempted uploading, we gave up. The file was not very large (only about 4 minutes), so why would this happen? Is it possibly a flaw with wmm? I used iMovie to do our falls movie, so I am a complete novice when it comes to wmm. Any suggestions? As of now, we are just going to use iMovie to try to overcome this obstacle.

Encounter with Technology --Social Studies 9th Grade

I was a Social Studies teacher today and the 9th grade classes (there were two doing this today) were working in the library Mac lab. I was stoked to hear that a subject commonly thought of as removed from technology (much like English), was utilizing the power of the web for learning. My hopes and dreams at the possibility of this beautiful junction were quickly shattered. A detailed account of my crash follows:

There were about 25 kids in each class. They were working in groups of 4 or 5 and each had a specific task they were to complete before collaborating to complete the project (a brochure for a country in Africa...hopefully more detailed and nuanced than a common tourist would want). Each student claimed they had already done their part...and proceeded to surf around on the Internet. There was no academic focus visible! I literally spent all of my time in these two periods walking around the computer lab making sure they were doing something at least partially academically related. There was no collaboration evident, though I reminded them that this was a group assignment. Out of each group, there was one studious, dedicated person who was assembling the information that they and their group had gathered on their specific country. In addition to forcing them to steer clear of sites that they were clearly not getting information from (web games, searching iTunes for a song they wanted, or viewing the latest upload to YouTube) I had my hands more than full trying to keep them from playing bumper chairs!

I am seriously hoping that this level of disobedience and lack of excitement about working in the computer lab using technology to learn, was simply due to the fact that I was a sub and therefore, didn't need to be respected. With the way that we have been talking about technology in classroom, I was really expecting that the kids would be chomping at the bit to research and learn on the web. But all they wanted to do was waste time and differ responsibility.

I guess that it does all come back to if they actually WANT to learn whatever the subject is...and apparently, they had little to no interest in learning about the countries in Africa. This teacher's idea was pretty cool and allowed the students a fair amount of creative freedom, but the kids were still not incredibly responsive. How can we as teachers instill in the students a sense of responsibility over their own learning, especially when we are allowing them to take more control?

Can any of you share your experiences with this sort of project and/or situation? Do you think they were being crazy difficult simply because their "real" teacher wasn't there?

P.S. Luckily, I had three other classes that went very well and I was also able to listen to a very interesting political debate during two of those three, or I would be thoroughly bummed.