What a few weeks it has been. The first week I tapped into my creative side and made a digital poster with images and a catchy phrase that was meaningful to me. I could see me doing more of that in the future. The following week I had to dig a little deeper and create a logo that said something about me. This process was more daunting as reflecting on myself is not an easy task. I called in the Calvary and friends came through. The logo was representative of my spiritual side without any connotation of it and then I associated it with my educator side. I was please with it; just wish the image I chose would have been easier to work with.
The larger part of the course was implementing the logo and tools learned in previous weeks in to digital newsletter. I first tried to use a software familiar to me and failed. Well, not really because it was nice enough to post on this site; I just could not go any further than one page and I needed more pages to complete the assignment.
The task was time consuming but gave me insight as to how many digital options there are and the various aspects of what a newsletter could be used for. I am familiar with the typical informative education newsletter in our district or campus however, the endless designs that I have come across seem to be poking at me in a way that I am unfamiliar. Its almost a calling to find an area that I am familiar with or passionate about and begin working on creating newsletters for those entities. As an adoptive parent I would love to be the voice for agencies that are reaching out the public and as an educator I would love to teach students and parents about the design aspects of digital creations.
The readings for this course took me into areas of hard thinking; especially the sense of "Gaming" in the classroom. I am not such a digital immigrant that I can not adapt to the idea that students are receptive to video games. I have a four yr old that loves to play Wii and if there is a Pre- K app on my phone he is interested. I love the idea that we all can learn to adapt to implementing some of these same gaming ideas into the classroom content we teach. I have done Virtual Jeopardy and Who Wants to be a Millionaire games with my students for years now as review and practice sessions before testing. However, I am so open to the concept that due to such diversity in our learners we should be able to create age appropriate and leaning level assessments through with gaming features. I am not advocating that the classroom become and big Wii game but adding this to the learning environment is positive reinforcements to learning and incorporates what the students already do just in a more practical way.
I know that in upper level math classes such as middle school and on it seems to be typical of a teacher using a smart board or overhead to work the concepts with students illustrating the steps to working a math problem; sometimes it’s the same things in a science class which I am familiar with. I know from a middle school teacher aspect, what I hear being said after staff development trainings is; "how can I do that with my kids?" So my goal is to learn more of the upper level ideas that will engage our students who need more than shapes and animals. One area in Science where I found this to work was when I had my students create a virtual rollercoaster lab instead of the typical tube lab. Each student was responsible for the design of the coaster height, turns, number of cars which also affected the mass. Then they had to test it. The neat part of the program was they began to almost predict the potential and kinetic energy levels and knew if the coaster would crash of come short or stop in place properly. I did this for two days and my kids not only had fun, they got satisfaction out of achievement and then when it came time to assess them those 120 kids scored higher than some of the Pre AP classes that did the old style lab. The proof is in the pudding, as the saying goes. We just have to be the generation of teachers and educate those coming and going from the profession that as the learning styles change we can adjust our teaching styles to accommodate and student achievement will not drop. I don't think drill and kill is the proper tactics anymore and personally over testing is a bit much too. In this class I was assessed on the product or end result on much of my assignments. It may have taken me longer than others, I don't know but in the end my product was gradable and complete. There were no mid terms and finals but I still feel as though my assessments were fair because I demonstrated that I could use the software, was creative and completed the task. Thank you for the demonstration and example to follow.
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