Exit Slip 7/8/09

What are the top five lessons you will take back to your classroom or lifestyle after summer institute?

5: To write.

4: To rely on fellow educators to help me become a better teacher and to be there for them when they need me.

3: To encourage my children at home to write.  Writing shouldn’t only be done in the classroom.

2: To make a website for my students, parents and administrators to “see” in my classroom.

1: To have my students write.  It doesn’t even matter all the time what they write.  They need to practice putting pen to paper and writing down their thoughts.

Blogs & Wikis

Blogs & Wikis

 

Part of our reading for Summer Institute was Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.  Below are my favorites quotes from the first two chapters and why.

Ch 1 quotes:

#1: “Today’s students, of almost any age, are far ahead of their teachers in computer literacy.”

#2: “…years of computer use creates children that think differently from us.  They develop hypertext minds.  They leap around.  It’s as though their cognitive structures were parallel, not sequential.”

I like these quotes.  As humans we are an ever changing organism that has this amazing ability to adapt to new environments.  The computer age is a new environment of our own creation.  While we may have caused the change, we were not brought up with it nor are we immediately and naturally ready to handle these new demands.  But, our children have always known computers.  My kids have been playing educational computer games since they were two.  Their brains will have neuron pathways caused by computer use that my brain will not have.  Adult brains can make new connections, but not with the speed and ease of a developing child’s brain.

#3: “One of the most difficult roads to navigate in the world of the Read/Write web is how to balance the safety of the child with the benefits that come with students taking ownership of the work they publish online.”

In schools we try to protect our students by using filters.  But to many kids, these filters serve as nothing more than a challenge.  Teaching our students how to be safe on the internet needs to be a priority.  Many students are already aware of the juicier sides of the internet.  Rather than create an atmosphere of challenging them to find these sites, our time would be better spent if we simply used the internet to teach our classes instead of using so much time in patrolling their use.  I agree students should not be visiting inappropriate sites and some should be blocked at all costs.  But, blocking our nearly everything seems an extreme solution.

Chapter 2 quotes:

#1: “ There is an audience for my ideas.”

Too many students don’t realize that other people, including adults, want to hear what they have to say.  The notion that others want to hear their thoughts is an amazing revelation to many kids.  Classroom blogs could give students an outlet for expressing themselves in an academic setting.  It could also provide a communication device for students who are afraid to be heard in class.

#2: “…having  a place to publish the course curriculum, syllabus, class rules, homework assignments, rubrics, handouts and presentations makes a weblog a powerful course management tool.”

I love this idea.  No more “What did I miss when I was absent?”, “I didn’t know that was assigned.” etc. Also, parents could easily see what we are doing in class, as well as the school administration.

#3: “A blog gives them (the students) the opportunity to share in writing the ideas they may be too shy to speak.”

There are always students who are not afraid to speak up and those that are afraid to open their mouths.  But I believe it is a fundamental human characteristic to want your ideas to be heard and respected.  Giving our shy students the opportunity to be heard is a wonderful gift.

Demo Components

Jill Smith

Literacy & Learning Disabilities

Marshall University 2009

National Writing Project Demo

Components Format:

1.   Needs assessment: The underlying assumption about writing targeted in this demo is that writing and learning go hand in hand for all students.

 

2.   Learner analysis:  Student population – students with learning disabilities.  They have special ways of learning and writing that must be accommodated in order for them to be successful writers/learners.

 

3.   Instructional Objectives:  The goals and purposes of this demo is to provide students with learning disabilities with the means to become successful learners/writers.

 

4.   Strategies, Practices and Theories:  Instructional strategies included in this demo are ways to help the ADHD student become more organized and able to understand what it being asked of him/her; the students with dyslexia can be shown how books on tape and iPods can help them understand text better; dyslexic students can also use colored transparencies to help with text reading; and dysgraphia students can use laptops or alpha smart word processors to enable to type instead of handwriting.

 

5.   Materials:  Binders, highlighters, modified lesson plans, colored transparency films, head phones, books on tape, iPods, laptop computer and alpha smart.

 

6.   Implementation/Activity:  See Demo Write-up post.

 

7.   Assessment:  All students should be able to complete assignments with the rest of the class.  Quality of work and writing should improve.  Students with dysgraphia may start turning in authentic work for the first time.

 

8.   Conclusion/Evaluation/Reflection: Even though there may be students in class that have not been identified as having a particular learning disability, these learning strategies are easy to try without a diagnosis.  If they help, great, if not, no harm done.  I had students this past year that could have benefited from these strategies.  I looked for help among my peers, but still was unable to meet all students’ needs.  Implementing these simple accommodations could help students in more that just my class. 

 

9.   Annotated Bibliography: Separate post.

Exit Slip 7/7/09

Using your blog

What are your reflections on using your blog thus far in Summer Institute? How can keeping and maintaining a blog help you as a member of a professional community? How can you use blogs in your classroom?  I was actually thinking about this today.  I never would have dreamed that I would have a blog.  This just amazes me!  I would like to have a blog or a web page for my classroom.  Our technology guru at school had PD classes last year that showed teachers how to set these up for their classrooms.  I’m hoping she’ll do this again this fall.  If so, I’m definitely signing up. 

The Electronic Portfolio

How does the e-portfolio project change your blog and how you use it? What ways can you use an electronic portfolio as a professional? How could you use e-portfolios in your classroom? Well, I definitely know how to post, set up a page and create links on the page.  I don’t think that is what is being asked, though.  I think the e-portfolio shows how blogs can be used for more than posting a person’s thoughts and updating thier friends on how thier lives are going.  Blogs can be used as a way to post professional writings and keep them in thier file electronic file cabinet.  Students could do this as well.  But not at Ashland quite yet.  Our internet is getting overhauled and until it is finished, it couldn’t handle the load.  But I am hopeful for the future.

What Would I Change About Education?

What would I change about education?

 

            What would I change about education?  This is a loaded and dangerous question.  It could get many an educator into serious trouble should it be answered honestly.  But I won’t go there.  Too often the root of our problems lay within ourselves.  Instead I’ll begin with my dream world. 

             I would like for students to come to school with a new attitude.  In my utopia, students would arrive at school on time and wanting to learn.  They would sit down, in their assigned seats, have all of their class supplies with them, organized, and ready to use.  Their homework would be finished, neat, well done and promptly in the homework basket.  Each student would have respect for each other, themselves and me.  They would be ready, willing and able to learn knowing that education is a gift and knowledge is power.

            Now back to the real world.  Since I can’t change the attitudes of my students, it’s much more productive to focus on what I can and should change about myself.  After all, I’m the one in charge of my attitude and how prepared I am for class.  I read the materials, prepare the lessons, write my tests, all of which I have to do fresh again this year, new subject and all.  But I need to do more activities with my students.   I don’t give them enough fun stuff to do.  I already suspected this about myself but my demo at the Summer Writing Institute with the National Writing Program shone the light on this short coming of mine.  I’ve always used the excuse in class that if the students were better behaved, I’d let them do more fun activities.  But if that were true, I’d have had fun activities for attendants of my demo.  This group was not misbehaved or unfocused, where was my excuse during my writing demonstration?  If activities are ever going to be received by a group that takes them seriously, willingly and with a “make it work” attitude, it is our summer institute fellows.  So it must be me.  I have determined that I don’t plan for activities or try hard enough to make them work.  This I must change about myself.  I teach the perfect subject for cool stuff in the classroom, science.  I could blow stuff up, catch stuff on fire, mix chemicals together to form massive amounts of foam, the list goes on and on.  Ok, maybe not blow stuff up, but I could still do things that would be really interesting.  I will do these things this year.  If last year’s students get jealous and say “Hey, why didn’t Mrs. Smith do those things with us last year?” that will just make it so much better for this year’s class.

How to Get a Tattoo from the Perspective of a Tattooed Biology and Health Teacher

How to Get a Tattoo from the Perspective of a Tattooed Biology and Health Teacher

 

            Tattoos are works of art painted on a canvas of skin with brushes of fire and pain.  Yes. They do hurt, a lot.  The longer the tattoo session, the more pain you feel.  But with pain the brain releases natural pain killers, endorphins and natural opiates.  Some brains release so much that people enjoy getting tattoos.  A friend of mine who is a tattoo artist says “My customers pay for the pain.  The tattoo is simply a souvenir.”  I wouldn’t go that far.  My goal is the art that forever adorns my skin, permanently etching my memories into my canvas.

            But tattooing should not be taken lightly and should never be done on a whim.  This is serious business.  Beyond the “This is forever”, “What if you don’t like it in 50 years?”, or “What will people think?” questions, issues of health should be discussed.  Tattoo ink is driven below the skin by sets of needles.  The black outline is etched by sets of 3 or 5 needles at a time.  The fewer the needles, the thinner the line drawn.  The color is usually driven in by 7 to 11 needles at once.  As you should expect, you will bleed.  The better the artist, the less you bleed and therefore the less you scab.  Scabbing fades your new tattoo.  But you will bleed some no matter what.  After the tattoo, part of your blood called plasma will seep from the damaged skin for about a day.  Because the needles are going deep enough to reach blood, they can also introduce infections if they are not sterile.  Please do not assume that because a tattoo artist works in a certified business that his equipment is sterile.  From my reputable tattoo artist friend, I’ve learned some tips for avoiding tattoo infections.

#1        Don’t ever get a tattoo from a shop on your first visit.  Check them out first.  Ask them if they are Health Department approved.  This certificate should be proudly displayed.  If not…LEAVE!

#2        Ask to see their sterilizer and what their sterilization methods are.  If you are given attitude or a blank stare, LEAVE!  They should have a steam sterilizer or an autoclave oven in use.  Needles AND TATTOO GUNS should be sterilized.  The gun must be sterilized also because microscopic droplets of blood can rest on the gun from the previous canvas.  If needles are sterilized, they will be in a sterilization packet.  This looks like the cloth/paper packet material that dentists and surgeons remove tools from.  The sterilization packet should have a brown strip down its side.  This is called the indicator strip.  It turns dark brown when it is exposed to the correct temperature to kill microbes (viruses and bacteria).  If the needle packet has no brown indicator strip…LEAVE!

#3        Before you get inked.  The setup should look like a dentist’s office before a tooth extraction.  Sterile, blue hygienic paper should cover most everything.

#4        New ink wells should be used with each new customer.  Go in one day and watch someone else get a tattoo and witness the leftover ink being thrown away and NOT poured back into the bottles of ink.  Every time the needles are dipped into the inkwell, the ink is contaminated with any microbes the needles have carried from the canvas being tattooed.

#5        Trust your gut!  If you are uncomfortable with any part of the tattoo studio or the artist’s procedure…LEAVE!  Don’t take a chance with your health.  Even if you hate the tattoo, you can have it laser removed, though it is more expensive and more painful than getting the tattoo to begin with.  But blood born diseases such as Hepatitis-C and AIDS are truly till death do you part.

Ethnography 6-24-09

Ethnography

Jill Smith

June 24, 2009

MU Writing Project 

A letter to my favorite girlfriend.

     Hey, we started the day at 9 again; see I told you I needed to be there on time.  We were all kind of quiet today; Peggy had to say good morning twice in order to get a decent response.  Amy, she’s the one helping us with our demos, told us she could meet with us as early as 7:30 in the morning.  I agree with Jen, Amy’s a machine.

      Oh my gosh, we’ve got this huge E-portfolio due at the end of Summer Institute.  Peggy and Amy keep telling us to “Trust the process.”  Easier said than done, we’re all freaking out a little.  But Ian has promised to help us with the E part of the E-portfolio.  What a God send.  And guess what, we all got a dinner invitation to Hildegard’s house for later this year.  She’s the one who was talking about the American Chestnut wood in her home.  I can’t wait to see that. 

      We have this professional writing piece also to do.  Peggy and Amy said there were examples of those on Amy’s and Heather’s blogs.  Amy and Peggy are really on the same wavelength today. 

      Today’s sacred writing prompt was “What have our students taught us in the classroom?”

     As always, I learned a lot about the other fellows.  It’s a good thing what we say in the conference room stays in the conference room.   Well yeah, except for you of course.  But you’re not going to tell anyone, right?  OK, here goes.

            I wrote about Tim again, of course.  Peggy gave some really good advice, “you can’t just assign writings, you must teach them to write.”  I’ve got to remember that one.  Bethany told us about a student with a mop of curly chestnut hair that used to get on her nerves, but later managed to help her get the whole class to get to work.  I know, sounds like magic.  Beth learned to trust herself as a teacher and just close her door and teach with confidence.  Ugh, I’m so jealous!  Why can’t I do that?  Amy actually had a parent with the audacity to tell her that she would be a better teacher if she had kids of her own.  The nerve of some people.  The crazy part is, now that she is a mom, she sees the parent’s point of view.  She may not agree with it entirely but it makes more sense now.  Wow, she’s so understanding.  Mary Frances likes for the skills of her students to be noticed.  What lucky kids she has to be valued.  Hildegard liked Mary Frances’s writing better than her own and wanted to read it instead.  No fair, we must each read our own.  She admitted to getting a B in a paper cutting class, how scandalous!  But the teacher had been a prisoner of war, maybe he wasn’t right in the head anymore.  Amanda told us where Hell is, now I know it is in room 208 in Wurtland.  The students are demon’s there.  I must warn my friends who live in Raceland, wouldn’t want them to fall in.  Lorie models kindness, respect, discretion, reading, crosswords and true emotions.  And she teaches them reading!  Heather realized that “all kids are not genius level learners” but they can all succeed on their own levels.  Her room is like a family, love and discipline hand in hand.  Beth B. told us how everything starts at home.  Talk about old school, she still does home visits.  She is so brave.  I’m scared just to have some of my students in my classroom, never mind going to their rooms.  JD let us know how kids are still kids, sometimes stupid but usually harmless.  He actually apologized to a student once.  I know, cool right?  Megan was evaluated, again.  To make things worse, the lesson didn’t go well in her 1^st period guinea pig class.  But yeah, she ironed it out before the administrator got there.  Shuang told us about Albert getting to be the hero of her first power point presentation.  He was so proud.  Anne filled us in about these little girls who were telling mean stories in the bathroom about Lenny.  She questioned them all and got them to admit it.  Justice for Lenny prevailed.  Mandy has the cutest little 5^th grade girls that want to be just like her.  They wore dresses and heels and fixed up their hair just like hers.  You heard me, Mandy wears heels to teach in.  Her poor footsies.  Maybe her husband rubs her feet, I don’t know.  Jennifer went last and filled us in on this boy she once taught that really liked to drink.  Yeah, as much as Heather likes her Marlboros.  It really bothered her at first, but she figured it was better to keep him writing about it that make him feel bad about it.  I learned so much juicy info today.  But I must admit that the best thing I learned are what wonderful teachers I’m getting to hang out with this summer.  I know, you’re probably jealous.

            At 10:20 Mandy read her ethnography.  She wrote the whole thing like footnotes.  Way cool!  It was great.  Heather said it best with “Awesome, that’s how you do it!”

            Peggy then had us fill out our W-9’s.  I think those have something to do with taxes, but I’m not sure.  I hope I didn’t just sign away my first born child or anything.

            10:50, demo time.  Yeah, it’s not me!  Shuang demonstrated how she wants to add more culture into her Chinese class.  We got to see real Chinese characters, cities and even this cool picture show with music.  Shuang doesn’t think Chinese is difficult to learn.  She’s never watched me try to learn a foreign language.  It’s not pretty. 

            At noon we broke for lunch.  You would have loved our lunch, it was so good. Tacos from Anne. 

            Then it was time for our writing groups.  Our writer in residence, Laura Bentley, stayed with our group and helped us with our writings.  I had a rough draft of a piece that had been fun to write.  The coolest part was half way through the PQP of my writing, I realized that I wasn’t scared to have it critiqued.  I couldn’t believe it!  Without trying or realizing it had happened, trust had formed with in our group.  I love writing group!  It just needs to be longer, but so does the day in general.  24 hours is rarely enough.

            Finally break time.  Bladders everywhere were about to burst.  Everything is so good though, you hate to miss anything for unscheduled breaks.  But, why is the women’s bathroom so dark?  I think Beth F. is getting scared.  If it gets any darker, I think she’s going to sneak and use the men’s room. 

            After break, Jennifer Sias and Ian told showed us how to do a digital story.  This is going to be way cool and fun.  I already have ideas flying through my head.  Plus, I can’t wait to see everyone else’s finished stories.  Jennifer showed us a digital story about her grandmother, which was really good.  She also did one like Sarah McGlocklan’s animal planet commercials only her was about these two homeless cats.  It was a hoot!  I loved it.  Plus it worked, Peggy adopted both cats.  Ian’s story was about a monkey that lives in Huntington.  It was really good, but the monkey looked old and kind of sad.  Poor monkey.  We are supposed to know what we want to do our stories on by tomorrow and have our narratives by Monday.

            We each filed out after we had finished our exit slips.  I finished mine and then stayed so that I could write to you.  Time to go pick up the kids and head home.  Talk to you tomorrow.

Jill