Reflection on 2008 spring semester

Well, this is it: my final posting on my blog for my Education 429 class. It has been a hectic semester, to say the least. Besides taking this wonderfully relevant class, I am also finishing up another Education class (relating to standards) and an American poetry class. On top of that, I am teaching high school full time at Lathrop High School, raising my daughters, taking care of my wife and father, and running my small but spirited sled-dog team. Being so close to the finish line (less than 13 days until my last final exam), I am feeling elation and exhaustion. I'm elated because I'll be finishing 20 years of college and I feel I now have the tools to help me devote my time to becoming an effective educator; I'm exhausted because I can sense my heart isn't into some of the theoretical work I still need to complete in order to finish my class work, which brings me to my final project for this class.

For our final project in Ed 429 we are being asked to design an instructional unit which incorporates some of the technological tools we learned in class into our unit's lesson plans. As usual with most projects I create that have a heavy technological component, I have a hard time deciding on what it is I will focus on. Once I am exposed to a certain technological program, my infatuation with it becomes obsessive and I'll start five or six different, yet valuable, projects at the same time. I am always foiled by the lack of time that my lifestyle allows me to really commit to such endeavours. I hate to give up on an idea, but often they die on the vine for lack of attention, or, which happens most of the time, are placed on my que of projects to complete. This assignment will not fall to such a fate, but it will have to be delayed gratification because our school year is coming to an end and there is no time to implement it.

For the sake of brevity, I will not get into details regarding this project, unless I am required to post another blog entry, but what I have planned will be very useful and I am certain the students' interest will be engaged and their final project will fill them with a pride that some of them do not usually experience when completing typical class projects.

Before I sign off, I want to thank our professor Skip Via, a true educator who imbues his students with confidence, competency, and curiosity, which is all a student needs to have success. If all educators possessed his drive and desire our schools would be what they should be: a place where inquisitive minds can be nurtured and nudged to find the path on which they will excel.

Late Semester Weekly Blog

This week's blog finds me realizing the semester is quickly coming to a close and I have a ton of work to complete. At the end of this semester I will have completed 20 years of University work. In that time, I have earned undergraduate degrees in history and English, a teaching certification, a Masters in Education, and (almost) a Masters in English (I'm two classes shy of qualifying). The stress is mounting because I have three major assignments due in the next 14 days, while also having to take care of my high school students (and my family!). I can't wait until it's over!

As I begin figuring out our final project for this class, I realized I do not know how to use Inspiration. Hopefully the learning curve is manageable and I'll be able to put together a good presentation for this class. Now the only problem is to decide upon which idea I'll focus on. At this moment I have at least a half a dozen different projects that I want to incorporate into my classes next year. On top of that, there are a few projects that I want to create for my own classroom presentations. What I envision down the road is having every technology integrated into every one of my classes. I can show succinct video clips of our daily vocabulary word; I can include a popular song in my daily lesson plans to relate to themes in the short stories or poems we're reading: and I can even feature a daily visual (and audio) biography of a famous writer we're studying. Gee, with so many educational possibilities, and the only constraints being imagination and time, I'm imbued with an excitement that was so common when I first began teaching (15 years ago), yet often don't experience as often as I'd like. I'm excited.

VoiceThread project

This week's assignment was to create an instructional unit using an on-line program called VoiceThread. This free, web-based program offers many opportunities for students and educators to create instructional units that can instruct, inform, and inspire. What I like best about VoiceThread is its accessibility and its relativly user-friendly interface.

For my project I chose the controversial Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X. I am deeply interested in the Civil Rights movement, which profoundly changed the the course of the nation, and in the future I plan to have my students pick a character from this era and present a quick biography using VoiceThread. I created this one as a model for my students, and I purposely didn't try to perfect my narration because I wanted to be able to address this aspect of the project with my students. When it comes to putting my voice on tape, or even on public display (via a speech or a radio/television opportunity), I always get nervous and "choke." I believe relating this to students will help them relax, and do a better job.

One of the most appealing aspects of this technology is its accessibility. Students will be able to work on their projects at home and create their audio text in the comfort (and safety) of their own homes. What I really like is the preparation needed on the student's part just to produce a three or four frame VoiceThread biography. They'll need to do research, create an outline, compose a narrative that gets to the essential importance of their subject, and find pictures that, in the words the poet, are worth a 1,000 words. I look forward to introducing my students to VoiceThread; I'm sure they'll love it.

Panraven storybook project - Shea Stadium Memories

This week's blog has my Panraven storybook project called Shea Stadium Memories embedded above. This medium is another wonderful tool for both students and teachers. I have shared my last two projects in this class (poster and Flickr Slide Show) with the baseball fans in my high school class, and they like this one the best. Apparently they enjoy the slide show with the captions explaining each image of Shea.

This was an enjoyable project, but it wasn't as user-friendly as the last few projects we completed. The issues of limitations on text (on my slide-show the words seem too small, or perhaps my aging eyes are showing their weakness), and lack of manipulation objects of the individual pictures are minor flaws, and students should be able to produce a compelling story with very little direction and not a whole lot of man-hours.

One project I'll start with my students using Panraven will be autobiographies of their favorite poets. They will have a biographical theme, which will lend well with pictures and text. I may start this before the year ends, because it is fairly easy, and students should be able to garner pictures of their poets on the web. Overall, this program gets easier the more you work with it, but even a novice can produce an adequate, educational, and instructive final project on a first attempt.