A Final Reflection

While many of the assignments and the want to generate discussion during class has caused me to play the devil’s advocate, I should probably use this opportunity to objectively write my true thoughts on the information we have covered in class. I will also incorporate thoughts on how I have developed and think differently as to fit the criteria of the assignment.

First, I will address how I have changed throughout the class.

I remember the day my boss told me that my company was going to be switching over to bookless curriculum and smart classrooms. They had struck a deal with Samsung. All 200 plus teachers were handed a tab and told to “get comfortable with it.”

It was as comfortable as a sandpaper condom. Or so I imagine.

The switch was made and all of my lesson plans and wonderfully prepped books became obsolete overnight. For the next year, I would watch teachers crumble under the pressures brought on by the company. In a true Nazi-Germany-esque fashion, representatives of HQ randomly showed up to branches to make sure that the quality of education as well as a positive outlook on the shift was being upheld. Some were fired. Many quit.  All lived in fear. How were we supposed to “uphold” standards for curriculum that was presently standard-less?

This became my first independent experience with the integration of technology into the classroom, and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Not a lot of research needed to be done to realize that the foundations of this new curriculum were rotten. I heard references of Harvard professors backing particular methodologies; complicated charts and unnecessary language (fake terminology that sounded impressive) became tools for indoctrination; worst of all, nobody knew what we were objectively trying to do, namely the creators of the curriculum. You can imagine as a person whose position required me to not only teach but also guide other teachers that this represented dark times for me and my coworkers. I became known around my branch as a bitter protestor of smart technology in classrooms.

“You used to be so happy…” my boss said to me when I turned in my resignation.

Thus, you can imagine the sort of feeling that came over me when I realized that this entire class was going to be based around incorporating technology into the classroom. There is an entire community of people on the other side of the planet that know me as an avid hater of this very concept.  

However, this class has provided me with a flavor of new literacies that has me understanding its merits, a stark contrast to my previous experience. Specifically, I would like to elaborate on some of my previous posts.

The relationship between Atwell and my classroom experience.

This was one of my favorite readings from the semester that sort of put light on much of the bad teaching I had seen, and also much of the bad teaching I had participated in. It simply showed me that as teachers we need to be aware of more than simply our classroom objectives. This has cause me to use a term that I may or may not have coined: peripheral learning.

While Atwell talked about her experience as a child, and how her parents’ attitude towards it was reflected in their physical response rather than the words they were saying, I take this idea a step further. I think it is not just our attitude towards the learning that entails this peripheral learning, but also the means we use to promote learning that our kids pick up on. It has caused me to question the use of cell phones, or the implementation of TV shows as supplemental tools. This reading gave me the insight to question the efficacy of certain technologies in the classroom. It has forced me to ask questions about the purpose behind the implementation. Not just things like “What are the benefits to replacing a boring short story with a TV show?” but rather “What does replacing a short story with a TV show imply about short stories?”

Finally, how has this class and its contents changed the way I will teach? This to me, the answer to this question lies in the discourse prompted throughout the term and the flexibility of my professor. The feedback from the blogs have been really helpful for me in that I was not only able to respond to them in my own voice, one which is absent of the formalities found in academic writing, but I was encouraged to. As someone who never writes, this provided an opportunity to find my voice. Even as an art teacher, I will be encouraging my own students to maintain a blog. I have been able to see the benefits from the standpoint of an English teacher trying to promote writing, but this could also have promotional benefits to art students. This brings me to my final point.

I would like to say thank you to Professor McEntarfer for her understanding of my situation. I enrolled in this class, one designed around implementing technology into an English class setting, knowing full well that it would probably only vaguely represent the type of teaching I would do as an art teacher. She has allowed me to change many of my projects for the sake of making them more relevant to my vocational interests. In other words, I am learning things that I will actually use rather than fulfilling the requirements of a class. As someone who has paid in full for my education out of pocket, it is invaluable to me. Not as a number on a piece of paper that impresses employers, but as applicable and useful knowledge.

Going back to peripheral learning, I think a lot about the implications of such a gesture. Like the worried look of Atwell’s parents as she paddled in her swimming pool, I think that the lessons I have learned in this course go beyond the simple implementation of new literacies theory.

They say to me “I value your education.”  

Edmodo Lesson Plan...sort of

This lesson plan is coming a bit late, but here is the way that I think Edmodo could be useful in the classroom. I think it would be a bit of a stretch to call this a lesson plan, but it could certainly be used throughout the year to sort of mitigate difficult themes and help the students stay organized.

I just used Edmodo as a way to make material that was WAY too difficult for my kids a bit more palatable, but I would use this similarly as a way to provide supplemental learning opportunities for my kids based on themes we discuss in class. This does two things in that it provides information for me by providing me with test scores, and also I would be able to see which themes students are struggling with. Second, it would provide either review for kids who understand the material well, or clarification for students who don’t.

To provide incentive, teachers can make this into a competition while also helping students learn about complicated themes in a book. Here is what I did:

First, I had all of my students download Edmodo on their phones, and had them make an account. This is also a good ice-breaker, because you can have your kids make their profile pictures, show them how to use their backpack, etc.

****make them write down their names and passwords on flashcards and submit them to you! The first time I did this, most students forgot by the next class.

Next, I created lessons based around themes in each chapter of the book “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell. After teaching the theme in class, I would provide my students with study guides as to where they could find important information in the book in a doc. And post it in the library. I also had them relate the theme we discussed to the chapter of the book. (Note that this particular class was EFL, so one objective of this style of teaching is to teach your students how to skim and annotate. This would probably need to be re-structured if you were planning to teach this class with the intent of critical analysis).

Then, I would post quizzes with deadlines for the students. Each question was worth one point, and the points for all of the quizzes would be accumulated and posted on a board in the room. This way, the kids could see how they were doing in comparison to the other kids around them. I also used this as a means to offer extra points and extra credit in the class. 2 weeks before midterms and finals, I would post review quizzes, which would review the content and themes in the book. But I also posted question type study guides, practice IBT reading passages, videos that could be summarized, etc. This way, even if a student felt that they didn’t want to engage in the competition, they could still find supplementary material that would benefit them. All in all, this is a pretty effective tool for promoting supplementary learning material and review.

One thing I would have incorporated is the use of the calendar. This would be a good opportunity to get in touch with all of the teachers at the school that teach a particular grade, ask them for their syllabi, and upload all the due dates. This way you are less likely to overcrowd them and you could even collaborate with the other teachers. 

Final Technology - Rich Likes Crack

I am beginning to think that this project might be an awesome idea for students…if you spend an entire semester on it.

In an attempt to illustrate this story quickly and professionally, I had hoped to forego my usual style for the sake of saving time. The above image is the type of work with which I am most commonly associated: figurative work, relatively 3 dimensional renderings, done in ball point pen. The reason I did not want to do this particular project in this style is because it takes me forever to create the images; it is a very time consuming and laborious process. Thus, I have explored with varying levels of success the following programs. Hopefully they can be of some sort of use to others in their educational ventures:

1 – Bitstrips – This vile program littered my Facebook wall for months with pointless cartoon memes of people I knew. But it seemed to have all of the qualities I needed in that you can easily generate highly customized characters and, to an extent, manipulate them and their surroundings. Unfortunately, it is still not customizable enough to where you can do a complete narrative. The situations are all very bizarre and specific; I saw my illustrated self attempting to rob a bank in a “Mission Impossible” fashion. Once placed in these situations, you can really only make subtle adjustments such as the movement of your hands and the direction of your eyes. Overall, Bitstrips is as not-awesome as I always knew it was.

2 – Strip Generator – While this program is pretty intuitive, it is also fairly limited. You can create extremely basic black and white characters, or you can choose from a catalog of pre-made characters. For backgrounds, your characters are just sort of left floating in a white void. Your only means of incorporating spatial elements is by choosing from a limited selection. Depth can be created only by forced perspective, shrinking and enlarging the objects. However, this website could be really useful for storyboards. You can save it as a PDF and print it, and you can incorporate a number of customizable frames. You are, however, limited to one page.

3 – ToonDoo – This program is actually pretty amazing, and is one I would actually consider purchasing for my students’ use. You can create your own Characters and customize them even more than you can in Bitstrip. Also, you can make as many characters as you want, and you have a wide range of things that you can either choose from a catalog, or just create something if it isn’t available. You can save your projects, download them, edit them later. All in all, this one gets a 10 out of 10 from me. The only thing I don’t like is that you can’t have the characters turn their heads to interact with each other. In other words, all of the characters have to be staring face forward, which makes creating a narrative a bit difficult. Below I have included an image of a potential layout for my book.

Technology #4 - Book Making Technology

As an art major, I have had lots of experience making paper and practicing print making techniques. In fact, one time I even tried to make paper out of meat simply because a print maker said that you need fibers from plant matter in order to make paper.

I learned that he is correct…for now.

In an effort to try and actually incorporate some of these multimodal literacies into my own curriculum, I have decided to see if I can incorporate some traditional book-making techniques with new modes of book making.

Bookemon:

This website started with lots of promise, and ultimately ended up breaking my heart. It does have some cool features, like you can convert PDF and DOC files into books with relative ease. The price is fairly reasonable, depending on what you want, and the templates are fairly customizable. The downside is that you can only purchase bound books, which means that it could be cool if you already have all of your book finished, images scanned, and completely formatted. However, my efforts are focused on trying to find a program that will do all of this for me, as I would like to print them and bind them myself. So, while this program would be cool for having your kids make a high-quality end product, it does little in the realm of teaching them about how to make a book.

Sigh…back to the drawing board.