Reflection on the Blog Assignment

In the beginning of the assignment I believed that this was just going to be a time consuming project that would never end. When I heard we had to blog a couple times a week, my thought was oh great just more work to do. As I began to blog I realized that it wasn't so bad. The assignment began to grow on me not long after it started. As time went on I gained a large amount of information by reading the blogs of other students in my class as well as my professor. I also learn quite a bit by researching topics to post on my own blog. This assignment turned out to be one of the most effective assignments I have ever done. This was because I got to do my own research on whatever educational topic I wanted and write about it. It became fun to do this assignment. As a teacher I would definitely consider doing a blog with my students. This would allow them the same opportunities I had. Students get to be creative and have fun while still learning. For me the most fulfilling part of the assignment was when I found out what an influence my blog had on a friend of mine and the program that she runs.

Micro-Teaching Reflection

Friday I got to do my micro-teaching lesson on A Tell-Tale Heart by Poe. Going into that micro-teaching I definitely felt more comfortable than any other micro-teaching I ever went into. At the same time I was a little nervous about it because this was the first time I was dealing with the issue of behavioral problems in this situation. In the past I have dealt with behavioral problems in a real classroom situation but that is different because their regular classroom teacher was still in there and helped with the situation. In class I knew I was on my own. After starting my lesson that fear of the problems eased. I was a little taken back by the fact that there were not as many behavioral problems as I thought their were going to be. Overall I was happy about the way the lesson went. I definitely feel more confident getting into a classroom and teaching real students. 

The Last Lecture

I know I'm blogging a lot tonight, but I have a lot on my mind and a lot to catch up on. Anyway I purchased Randy Pausch's book The Last Lecture a few days ago. I finally began reading it last night. It is an excellent book so far and I would recommend picking up a copy and reading it. Thank you Susan for bringing his last lecture up in you blog. Prior to that I had never heard about him. He has many good points for living life in his lecture which also continue into his book. Since I had heard about him and watched his lecture I had passed the information on to others that I thought would be interested. They have all come back to me with the response of "WOW! It is unbelievable how a guy that is dying has such a great outlook on life." After I am done with my copy of the book I have 4 or 5 people borrowing it to read for themselves. I just figured I would pass on the fact that his book is proving to be as good as his lecture.

Just on another thought, although Randy wrote his lecture for just three people he has impacted so many more lives. I am included in those who were impacted by this lecture. I am one to take life very seriously, part of which comes from my job. I have been an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) riding emergency calls at least 3 to 4 days a week for the last 5 years, since I was 16 years old. Sometimes after a tough day at work it hits me hard and and I take things very seriously. After watching Randy's lecture I began to give that very serious aspect of my life some thought. In the end I came to the conclusion that no matter what happens at work leave it at work, and go out and live life to the fullest. Don't over analyze situations, especially the ones you have no control over it is not worth wasting that very valuable time you have in life.

Excellent After School Program

The attached website is for an after school program that has really been effecting the students involved in the middle school I am doing my Junior Field Experience. Every time I turn around I hear students and teachers talking about how great the Goodworx Program is and how it is really helping students. 

So here is the website for the program.

http://www.goodworxfoundation.com/

Check it out and see what you think.

Flocabulary

After viewing the Flocabulary website I had very mixed feelings on it. Some part of me thought that maybe it could be a useful tool for influencing a few students that are really into music, but not really into what they are learning. On the other hand I felt as though it is not a great tool to use in the classroom because to me it is just not something that seems effective. Being that I have mixed feelings on this I would be willing to try it once or twice in the classroom as an introduction or a way to close out a unit. It could never hurt to try something new. What is the worst that can happen? It doesn't work and you try something else for next time.

Inspiring Someone When Least Expected

This post is inspired by an email I received from a friend of mine in response to an email I sent her. A while back I was speaking with a friend and we were talking about education and student. This conversation came up because some of the students in my junior field class are involved the mentoring, tutoring and life skills training after school program in which she is director of operations. Any way I wound up sending her an email that included a few links to different websites, one of which was my blog. After reading part of my blog and watching the attached video (the post about creativity) it inspired her to write an email to her boss informing him that she wants to change their program to inspire students to be more creative and become more motivated. She later sent me an email telling what happened after reading my blog and how I inspired her just by giving information and my thoughts. 

What I'm trying to say by telling you the story above is do not ever think that anything you are doing is meaningless because you never know when it could have an impact on someone else's life. This is something I will carry with me into the classroom. I never really thought that anything I wrote in this blog would have a great enough effect to provoke change in a program.

MyAccess

This is kind of a delayed response, but anyway here it goes. MyAccess is a program that was introduced to our class by Dr. Luongo. The best way to describe this program is that it's a program designed to give students instant feedback and a score for their writing. It also has many other features to help improve students' writing. These other features include word banks, a dictionary, and a thesaurus among other things. I really found MyAccess to be an extremely useful tool. I wished that I had this when I was a student. It definitely prepares students to be better writers. This is especially useful in the grades that are preparing for tests such as the HSPA, GEPA, or ESPA. I got into a discussion about this program with the teacher I am working with for my junior field experience. She informed me that the district had a trial version of the program but no one had any kind of training on how to use it. That is terrible, having such a wonderful program available, but not being able to use it. I showed her some of the basics to her questions but there were still things I didn't know. Dr. Luongo gave me information to pass on to my cooperating teacher to get the district trained. This is an excellent program and if given the chance as an educator learn it and use it. This should apply to any useful learning tool, don't let them go to waste.