soliterri1

Facebook... yet again

2009-06-01T09:44:00.000-07:00

Mainland's prom was Saturday night, so Saturday, all day, was a very BUSY day at my house. By 5:30, we had lots of high school kids AND their parents at my house taking pictures. If you're like me, you take a picture and it sits in your memory stick for, well for forever. However, while the picture was still fresh in my memory stick (with me trying to figure out when to get it onto my computer), my daughter and her friends had already posted all their pictures on their Facebook pages. Where they found the time from After Prom, which ended at 3:30 a.m., to 8:30 a.m. when I was getting ready to go to breakfast I have no idea. Don't they need sleep? I would need hours of sleep to navigate the "download your pictures here" area of Facebook. Needless to say, my pictures are still in the memory stick, not on my computer. Maybe someday.....

Generational differences

2009-05-27T10:02:00.000-07:00

I have 3 family members that are in a movie to be released next summer. The movie is based on a cartoon called "Avatar". All 3 of these family members are over 60 years of age and had absolutely NO idea what Avatar was about. When they told my daughters and I, we knew right away! Hopey ran to the computer, put up YouTube, and found an interview with the director of the movie and the creators of the cartoon up in no time for everyone to watch. Then she played one of the cartoons for the "older" ones to watch so they can have some idea of what they are participating in. Funny how using the internet to find information about this movie never occured to my "older"family members, but was immediate for my younger daughters.

Widgets

2009-05-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

Many years ago my daughter wanted a gigapet. Since she wasn't allowed to have any "real" animal as a pet, I allowed her to buy a gigapet. She had a blast with it! It was funny for me to see her interacting with this virtual pet because she'd get frustrated with it, be proud of it... it was cute. The newly posted panda widget... to the right and down of this post, reminded me of our gigapet days. It's fun the way it's head moves to follow my mouse. I can even feed it bamboo. It takes the bamboo and rolls over onto its back to eat it. Now this is my type of pet! No mess to clean, no money to spend... :)

Star Trek

2009-05-19T14:11:00.001-07:00

Talk about how far technology can go! I am, and always will be a HUGE sci-fi fan.. so, I simply loved the new Star Trek movie. Because of our current class and how it's got us focused on using web 2.0 tools in our classroom, home, etc... I found myself, throughout the entire movie, looking at how they used their "technology". Fake I know, but exciting to me! One down side throughout every Star Trek, is the computer's ability to locate you whereever you are on the ship. Will there be any privacy in the future? Facebook and Twitter now, computer's ratting me out in the future?!

Avatars

2009-05-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

I am not a gamer, but I have family members that are. They create an avatar for themselves and then play a game online. For some unknown reason, I have a fascination with avatars. I found an avatar site that actually allows the avatars to be embedded into blogs, Facebook pages, MySpace, etc. . These avatars can even speak using the creator's voice! I did create an avatar, and have tried to embed it into this blog with no success. I can't wait to succeed at this.. who knows, maybe next time you're reading this blog, my voice will greet you to the site.

Again, redundancy?

2009-05-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I went out to breakfast with my husband and two daughters. As we were waiting for our food, Hopey announces that she may begin to tweet. Of course my older daughter and I know what that means. My husband, however, who only uses the internet for his fantasy football and baseball responded with "What the hell is a tweet?". (Don't worry, Hopey gives him points for each curse word... he's down quite a bit!) After Hopey's intentionally confusing explanation of "tweeting", I proceeded to explain to him that it's the same thing as Facebook, basically... of course he doesn't know what Facebook is. Now he thinks he needs to be on either Facebook or Twitter. So far, at the writing of this blog, I have successfully prevented him from signing up for either.. a self-preservation move on my part (he's terrible with the computer!). Some day I'll have to help him sign up for some social networking site... until then, he seems pretty happy just blogging to his fantasy sport teams.. even though he doesn't know what blogging is.

Ohh what to choose!

2009-05-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

As I peruse the multitude of web 2.0 tools, I find that so many of them are redundant (I feel like I've said this before!). None are necessarily superior to the next one, just different colors, maybe a new or different option. Take two story making sites: Story top and Kerpoof. Both offer basically the same activity, making a story. The pictures, backgrounds, etc are different, but the main idea is the same. Facebook, myspace, twitter... do they even matter? Too many tools doing basically the same thing, and too much being with others... even if it is in the virtual sense. My daughter would disagree on my last point. She lives and dies by facebook. She wakes up, and within one second knows what friends are up, what they are doing, how they are doing, what they will be doing... and the list goes on and on and on. In contrast, I wake up to quiet, have no idea what even my daughter's are doing at the other end of the hall, and love every minute of it.

web 2.0 tools

2009-05-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

The number one fustration for me with these web tools, the free ones, is fear. I have fear that every time I go to download something I get a virus or throw my computer out of whack for some other reason. Marc showed me a site today that doesn't require downloading, Storytop.com. It was great! I registered, played around, and had no difficulties. Now to work out the kinks in our project... hmmm what direction will it take? We've already played around with two different topics, at least four different ways of presenting the info, using the tools... a work in progress!

2009-03-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

Since, according to constructivism, learning is based on experience, ARCS would be a very good way to get your learners motivated, interested, and curious about the subject they need to understand. Being a special needs teacher, I have used a lot of experience based lessons. My learners process and remember information on a more concrete level so my lessons have to be more hands on, experiential. Personally, I enjoy learning about things in a hands on type of way. For instance, I never gave a hoot about the kings and queens of England. When my husband I visited England, we saw quite a few homes of some of the past kings and queens of England. While going through the homes I couldn't get enough of the history! Through being there and experiencing their homes, clothes, habits, I couldn't wait to hear and learn more. Hmm, where can I convince him to take me next to "expand my knowledge base"?

Driving Miss Megan

2009-03-21T12:08:00.001-07:00

My 16 year old has her driver's permit, a personal nightmare for me. The funny thing is that it's not my daughter's driving that I fear, it's all the things that she does IN MY MIND while she's driving and I am sitting next to her. Literally, she could be stopping, slowly, at a stop sign. I see her careening through the stop sign, being hit by an oncoming car. Literally she is just driving down the road, under the speed limit as she is extra cautious. In my mind, she is wildly speeding, doing a "drunkard's path" and hitting all dogs and pedestrians along Linwood's bike path. Needless to say, I have taken her driving a total of two times in what is almost a year. There's an old adage that says "Practice makes perfect". That is certainly true for learning how to drive, but Meg won't be getting her driving practice with me unless I am heavily medicated. However, I CAN teach math without the cognitive "visions" or being heavily medicated. Math is another subject where practice makes perfect. Does this hold true for all things in life? Can't we see or do things so often (the practice) that we don't see differences (other ways of doing or seeing things) for what they trully are? We make assumptions instead of observations, or our observations are tainted by our experiences. Although practice does make perfect in some areas of our lives, I think we must also remember that things aren't always as they seem. In a wonderful world of so much variety, we can't afford to "clump" experiences or people into our old and worn mental files...we would be missing out on life.

It's not just me!...

2009-03-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

I was so relieved in class when Jill mentioned how difficult the Advanced Organizer jargon was for her. Just like Jill, I had to read and reread nearly every paragraph of the chapter (I also had to pinch myself to stay awake). All these complicated words, just to talk about graphic organizers. Jill's presentation was first rate, however. I loved the way she put the strategy to work by creating folders within a folder to be more organized. Advanced organizers are used a lot in my classroom. They help special needs students make sense of all the information, they organize. We've used Venn diagrams to compare and contrast stories we've read. We've used webs to further our understanding of our new vocabulary words.
Now onto Cognitive Inquiry. I'm never sure how I feel about this theory. I see the good in it, but also the bad. Personally, I'd rather work alone, with all the "am I doing this correctly?" insecurities. In cognitive inquiry, we work in groups. Groups aren't so bad if I am comfortable with everyone (I am completely comfortable with my MAIT family), and if everyone pulls their weight. As a teacher, I've seen groups that work together and learn, and I see groups right next to this group, where only one or two children are doing the work while the others play around. To give my final thoughts on this theory: I like it, but with close observation of the groups by the teacher, and in moderation.

Home schooling...

2009-03-03T16:13:00.000-08:00

Tonight's class was nice. I like the "drop in cafe" style. I was there if my little one needed me and to kiss my husband good bye when he left for basketball... a nice relaxing evening. The only glitch I ran in to was when I tried to work on a power point and be on Wimba at the same time. I kept getting error messages. Memorable thoughts of the class... Ann shouldn't use the talk lock button, Kathy on the camera (our Wimba version of the movie Truman).
While working on my personal learning theory and reading about the different theories in our book, my eyes are open to so many spatterings of the theories in action, both within my classroom and in others. I am very fortunate to be in class support to two regular education teachers with very different teaching styles, utilizing different degrees of the various learning theories. I wonder if anyone will ever put all the theories, or parts of them, into one new theory?

Synectics

2009-02-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

Synectics is a fun topic because you can let your imagination run wild. There are no right or wrong answers. Use synectics to brainstorm in your classroom, at work, at home, for our grad classes. I think it's also a fun way to just "exercise" my mind. It gets me thinking out of the box, so to speak. Synectics was a blast to present, but I am glad my presentation is OVER!

RSC library

2009-02-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

Not being able to get my headphones to work in the lab at RSC left me paranoid and frustrated. At home, I plugged in my headphones and listened to part of Karen's archive the first chance I got, just to make sure my headphones still worked... they did. Reviewing the Wimba quiz questions reassured me that I knew what I was doing. I will be a bit slow and unsure of myself during the quiz, but I know what I am doing, and that's what matters. During the entire class, my mind was focused on finding articles for my personal learning theory. This is the majority of my concerns right now. As much as I want to use the computer to order books and articles, I have a feeling I will need to take a good old fashioned trip to the library. But I will continue to persevere with the ordering aspect... a challenge I need to conquer. To reference Gagne's Events of Instruction, I think I needed more of step 6, responding, for our library session. You wouldn't think so, being a graduate student, but I do think that would've made my knowledge base stronger. For some things I need A LOT of practice.

Learning about learning

2009-02-12T10:28:00.000-08:00

It's easy for me to reflect on this class because I link the visuals, the black box, rat, bell, eggs, etc., to the concepts. I liked knowing what we were going to learn about and the order in which we were going to do them (helps me keep organized in my thinking). Our lesson plan was exceptionally helpful. It helped me make sense of what the text was about by putting into practice what the words were conveying. When a student comes to me, I make certain assumptions about what their existing knowledge base consists of because they have passed a certain level in the math curriculum, language curriculum, etc. But what about the student that isn't grasping the material? Does she have any existing knowledge base for me to build upon? How can I help her organize the information so she can retrieve it and use it later? Can she inculcate the information or does she need to rely on external organizers? How is she thinking? Gagne and Briggs model keeps me thinking about the learner and where to begin to look if one of my students isn't quite grasping our subject.

Behaviorism

2009-02-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

My favorite of the Behavioral Models is Behavior Modeling. It has been my experience that Behavior Modeling techniques, when followed through correctly, made learning a "soft" skill less painful and in many instances even increased the confidence of the student. When teaching social skills, practice and feedback are key. Learning interpersonal skills is difficult enough Throw into the mix that for every single social skill you learn, there are multiple situations and conditions under which the skill can be used. Similar in that you need to use the skill, different in that the people, places, atmosphere, are all different. Take greeting someone. If I learn to shake hands when first introduced to someone, how about after I already know you? Do I shake hands with you the next time I meet you as well? Do I just "nod" at you? Do I just say "Hey"? Do I say "Hey" to an authority figure or just friends? Does someone have to introduce us for me to shake your hand, or can you introduce yourself to me? Skillstreaming is a curriculum that many special education teachers have utilized with success when teaching their students how to interact in various social situations. I like this curriculum because it tends to explain things that I may overlook when teaching social skills. This curriculum even goes so far as to explain that when shaking someone's hand, your hands are to meet "web to web". Although behaviorial theories tend to not promote critical thinking skills, there are situations where they are very useful.

Wimbaing

2009-01-30T04:39:00.001-08:00

The first couple of times logging onto a computer with the intent of attempting something new is scary because... well, let's just say that computers and I have issues with each other. With this history, Tuesday night's class, and the extra session Thursday night, proved to increase my confidence by leaps and bounds! Struggling through my first Wimba experience with my MAIT family was so wonderful compared to stumbling over and questioning my attempts by myself at home. Tuesday night I felt a little like Amy Ack was stuck in another dimension, sending us messages via the whiteboard and not being able to hear her (I'm a sci fi freak). Practicing those white board tools, instead of being afraid the computer would kick me out indefinately if I did, was liberating.

2009-01-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

My baby... cute as can be!

2009-01-27T16:32:00.000-08:00

My oldest little one... lost in a book.

2009-01-21T05:27:00.000-08:00

Reflecting on everything we discussed in class last night, looking at and thinking about the syllabus as a whole make this class very daunting to me. However, segmenting each part of the syllabus by setting my daily goals for the class lessens my fear. Decision number one, decide on a blog, is done. Jumping right into this blog, which I was nervous about as it's been a while since I've blogged, was the best way for me to accomplish this. Now to get this to the Blackboard... hmmmmm. Goal number 2 is to read up on learning theories and begin working on our projects. To accomplish this goal I found this website about learning theories, clicked on situated learning and have found where I will begin to read, take notes, and formulate my projects in my mind. My third goal for today, an excel spreadsheet to keep track of my points, is to come when I get home from work.