Life in the Center

Great minds think alike… I hope

geraghtym — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:39:37 +0000

This week, I will be presenting to class on the topic of web 2.0 technologies used for literacy. No sooner did I finish up my presentation than did I come across this blog posting: http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.com/ , which referenced this site: http://file2.ws/web16 . This site is far more extensive than I would have time for in my presentation, but it has also given me hope that I could potentially expand my presentation in order to present to a different or larger audience. I think my presentation will be useful, and will reflect my specific ideas about web 2.0 and literacy.

geraghtym — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:43:48 +0000

Computer Lab Management ideas:

This is something I penned as I began piloting the various technologies that I learned about in CTER. I put together some ideas that I came up with about how to better manage the new technologies that I have learned about:

Does your normally “Head of the Class” brood turn into the “Dangerous Minds” bunch when you take them into the computer lab? Here are some suggestions that you might not have thought of for constuctively engaging your students, and helping you with classroom management at the same time while in the lab:

1) Give the students more tasks than your average students can complete in the time allotted:
-A busy student is often a productive and more engaged student! Pace the activity so that some may complete it by the end of the class, but others may need additional time on their own to do so. Another way of doing this is having an extra credit assignment, or an extra credit portion of the assignment, with instructions to complete if time permits.

2) Have a plan B
-Always go into the lab with either multiple assignments created, or with a backup assignment that you can give your kids. You never know when the first one needs to be scrapped or re-tooled.

3) Testing your assignments
-If your school has a separate interface or filter for staff and students, what may work well on your machine may not work well on the students’ machines. Ask a technology staff to check for you, or if you have access to students’ login information, login as a student, and try out the activty and all required program or sites. If possible, do so in the lab you plan to be in.

4) Try having an audio component to your activity
-While not always a possibility, students are so used to listening to headphones, that audio often times engages them in ways that visual engaged previous generations. This also will keep students from socializing during individual activities.

5) Know what a student’s computer SHOULD look like
-If a student is doing an activity that requires a website and a word processing window, why do they have six items on their task bar? Probably because they are “mininmizing” what you shouldn’t see as you are passing around. While its best to have a system in place where you can montor student machines from your machine, all it takes is a quick scan at student monitors to make sure they are in the right places… whether they are working or not is another story!

That’s all for now… anybody have more to add… I could definitely use some more advice!

geraghtym — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:42:32 +0000

My story – a journey to teaching

I am happy to share with you my I-Movie about how I became a teacher. I think it turned out pretty well, especially considering that my weakest spot, technologically speaking, is movie making and audio-visual skills. I think I have the right balance of a good story an good video/audio effects. I spent alot of time and effort on this, and I am glad that it is done. However, I am now more confident of my abilities in this area, and feel as though doing this in the future will be easier, and I will be able to produce more sophisticated films.

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/mgerag3/shared/My%20Great%20Mov.mov

Webquest for the grail…

geraghtym — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 02:31:04 +0000

Building my most recent webquest for this class has really gotten me rethinking what I consider to be a webquest. I guess I had just tossed that term around rather freely in my teaching career, and I probably need to follow a more defined structure, and have more precise and comprehensive outcomes on what I call a “Webquest”, as opposed to having the results of any of my internet research based assignments called a “Webquest.” Good food for thought, and of course, as always with my realizations, more lesson planning…

Slaying my technological demons…

geraghtym — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 23:24:57 +0000

This week I have attempted to slay one of my technological demons – web page building/publishing. I am once again struggling with the mechanics of the thing, much as I have for many other of the web pages I have had to design for CTER. Nothing ever quite works as it is supposed to, links seem to break line fine porcelin, and the physical appearance of the web pages seems to be much worse than it did when I was editing it. That being said, like any other skill, I suppose if I were to do it more than twice a year, I might develop more skill at it than I have now. I will keep plucking away, and hopefully, someday, I can be proficient at it.

Adding Moodle to the Portfolio…

geraghtym — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 20:12:44 +0000

This year, I have been expanding my use of Moodle in the classroom. Upon adding one of my Moodle pages to my e-portfolio, I feel like I have finally come full circle in terms of being a teacher who kept my technology interest to myself, to one who has become known among my students and colleagues as one who embraces technology in the classroom and beyond. This year especially, I have been trying to utilize as many of the technologies available to me as possible from Moodle. While I made extensive use of some features, like the discussion forums, there are some that I have not touched until this year. One of these, the glossary, is perhaps the most exciting to me. The glossary has enabled me to engage the students in a collaborative endeavor that will hopefully change some of the ways they view the internet world. I have introduced the idea of “Web 2.0″ to them, the notion that they will be producers of content online, as opposed to just consumers. I think that if I can do more of this, the new concept may begin to sink in. My next goal with Moodle is to integrate Moodle with other technologies. I have done so in other classes, successfully making Moodle part of an online, nationwide mock congress that my government students were a part of last year, but am still pondering ways for my English students to engage in other technologies. I believe that when I begin to teach writing this year, I may find some opportunities to do so. Until then, I am quite content learning and growing as a teacher via Moodle.

The future, CTER?

geraghtym — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:35:40 +0000

Comedian Conan O’Brien recently moved his show on two accounts – from the East Coast to LA and to an hour early, immediately following the local news. As a long time fan, I wondered what would happen to a favorite bit he would do, “In the year 2000.” This “satirical seeing” of the future always made me chuckle, and over the 15 years of his show, changed very little. Aside from a new guest to play off of, the bit kept the same cheap costumes, the same creepy background music, the same echo into the microphone. Very low rent, but worth my time. When his show changed, I was surprised to see that the skit came back – totally re-invented. It was now called “In the year 3000″, it had new fancy metal costumes with built in lights that dropped from the ceiling on wires, a new graphic to accompany a new theme song. While it was still recognizable as that look into the future that I remembered chuckling at in my teen years, it was dramatically changed; I remain undecided on if the change was for the better. His current ratings may indicate otherwise….

So why all the O’Brien nostalgia? What my fellow Irishman did was nothing short of re-doing his entire show virtually overnight. I feel that education has had a similar rapid pace of change. I feel like my educational experience was far closer to those who came 15 years before me than those I teach now 15 years after my schooling experience. Even in my eight years in the classroom, I feel like the change has been tremendous. The pace can be dizzying, but is change always for the better? My students are adept at googling for the most offbeat of terms, but not so adept at respect for those unique individuals in their midst. They can navigate a wiki, discussion forum, or a variety of other web 2.0 technologies like they were childrens’ toys, but can’t navigate directions around their own towns unless their friends G, P, and S are along for the ride. Is there a point where we have too much technology in our classrooms? I don’t think we are there yet, but I think that we as educational technology professionals have not only an obligation to advance our colleagues integration of technology, but also not to sell them a bill of false goods. Technology is not always the “best” way to teach a given topic, and trying to use technology for a lesson that its really unneccesary for can be like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. We have an obligation to encourage balance and also to practice it ourselves. I recall hearing of a situation where a tech director at a nearby district attended a meeting of various people via video conferencing. Sounds like a great use of technology, right? Well the tech director was in the basement of the building where the meeting was taking place, and did not want to bother to leave his office to attend the meeting on the second floor. Technology – yes; useful – no. The more I use technology in class the more convinced I am that it is most effective when it is targeted and appropriate. I fear that in our haste to make every part of the educational experience a technological one, we are losing our humanity a bit. I don’t see a crisis per-say, but I think it will take responsible educational technology professionals working alongside classroom teachers, administrators, parents and community members to make sure that our students get the same quality of education as students 5 years ago, 15 years ago, and 50 years ago.

The end of the road…

geraghtym — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:49:48 +0000

So the journey comes to an end. If I had to evaluate my performance in the course on evaluation, I’d say I tried my hardest on a topic that I had difficulty at times getting my head around. I did enjoy the readings, and I also enjoyed the fact that I could think a bit about the curriculum that my project is based on evaluating. I also got to think a lot about who should be evaluating, and how they should determine their methods. There’s a lot more to it than just simply getting a thumbs up or a thumbs down – this can be a parto of an evaluation, but not the end of it. One of my favorite parts of the course, as usual, was the give and take of my colleagues in the course. I have really enjoyed matriculating with this group, and I almost feel like I have better interactions in these classes than I have in my traditional grad school classes, so thanks again y’all.

Paper, we have to write a paper? I knew I should have read the syllabus!

geraghtym — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:49:17 +0000

Just kidding. Though I haven’t exactly done tons of work on the paper, I am finally overcoming my writer’s block, and I think things will snowball from here. I always have a hard time starting assignment, but when I hit my groove, just try to stop me! I am discovering as I reflect on the questions that I ask that there seems to be no perfect way to ask a question. Each way I think of changing the wording seems to introduce a new problem or a new bias. I guess it just the English teacher in me to think of all these language implications.

Incidentally (and only slightly off topic), I just started using Moodle for the classes that I teach in the last two weeks (probably why I haven’t had as much time to work on my assignments for this class!). I have been very intrigued by the results – my grading time has literally been cut in half, and I seem to be getting more assignments back than I do via paper. And to boot, I estimate that I’ve already saved three whole reems of paper by having my students submit their assignments electronically, with an estimation of 5 more reems saved by having my students submit their final projects this way as well. I think its worth a bit of thanks to our professors thus far in the program for utilizing Moodle so well that I’ve been able to adapt it for my use so easily.

Have a Happy Turkey Day. And extra credit if you respond with the first year that Thanksgiving was celebrated as a National Holiday – no Googling!

Michael

Rethinking, Retooling, soon Recharging….

geraghtym — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:30:18 +0000

Given some distance between my initial draft and having a look at my assignment again this week, I’ve gained a bit of perspective. As I’ve begun to have my own frustrations with the curriculum that I’m evaluating, I am becoming more and more a fan of someone who has knowledge of and who has a stake in a program being a designer and evaluator of an evaluation process. As involved in the process of designing the curriculum as I was, and as big a supporter as I was of its implementation, I am now becoming aware of its limitations, and think that I will be redesigning some of my assignment to address some of my own concerns. I think the questions I will add to my evaluation will deal with the teacher workload involved in the curriculum. I’ve discovered that the amount of time spent implementing the curriculum has been a lot more than I previously thought, so this issue needs to be addressed. Otherwise, I am pretty happy with my my assignment, and I look forward to finishing it up with my Thanksgiving Break, and presenting the fruits of my labor to my eager classmates. Now that the election is over, perhaps I can think of some new, non-political metaphors to describe my experiences in future posts

Michael