Jun
30
Great Teachers
June 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I thought the days of learning from a great teacher were in my past. After all, it has been over 25 years since I have had a teacher who inspired me.
All that changed during the last ten days.
This summer I enrolled in a course I thought would teach me how I could make my classes exciting by adding technology to my [...]
Jun
30
Random Thoughts
June 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Here is something I had written to post on June 26, 2006. I did not get the chance because I had difficulty accessing this site. For several days, I lost the desire to blog because the site did not seem to be available when I wanted to post.
Seems I was already thinking about my struggles [...]
Jun
30
Project Day
June 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment
It’s not about the technology…it’s about the learning that occurs. This paraphrase of my instructor’s comments, made earlier in the course, has stayed with me throught this journey. I have embraced the technology, but I have stuggled with finding a place for it in my teaching. I love to learn about new ways to use [...]
Jun
29
Reflecting on Creating My Class Project
June 29, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I wanted to scream as I stared at the lonely cursor blinking on a nearly empty sheet of virtual paper. I had erased hours of work because of a question – What do I really care about?
My project started out completely different from its current form. I liked the original ideas, but felt something was [...]
Jun
28
A long time
June 28, 2006 | 1 Comment
Wow! It has been six days since I have posted to my blog. I admit frustration set in because I could not log onto this site for serevral days. Earlier today, I tried and again had difficulty. I allowed this frustration to keep me from being diligent in my efforts to use blogging.
Jun
28
Meeting the Needs of Students
June 28, 2006 | Leave a Comment
The challenge I face as a teacher is incorporating this wonderful new world of web based tools into my English curriculum. I have seen a couple of interesting projects involving the use of student-created videos posted to the web; I have listened to podcasts created by students; I have watched members of this course [...]
Jun
22
Understanding by Design (UbD)
June 22, 2006 | 1 Comment
Today, I began a cluster called “UbD for ELA”. Understanding by Design, UbD, is a research-based framework for curriculum design. The State of Delaware wants teachers to use this framework to align daily lessons with the state’s standards, ultimately resulting in increased student achievement.
The central question introducing participants to UbD asked us “What do people [...]
Jun
21
Permutations
June 21, 2006 | Leave a Comment
One of the interesting twists in my life was discovering I enjoyed using a computer. Most of what I know comes from trial and error. This is only my third technology course since 1998. But all has not been wonderful in Digi-land. My first experience with a computer made me want to scream.
In the spring of 1984 [...]
Jun
21
Day 3 – A better understanding
June 21, 2006 | 1 Comment
I won’t call it a headache, but each day when we repair to the computer lab, I find my thoughts swirling in a sea of information. The lab work provides a needed break. I engage a different part of the brain.
Today, I complained about the length of time our group was taking to complete work [...]
Jun
20
Day 2 – Growing Pains and Other Musings
June 20, 2006 | Comments Off
Today’s post reflects an experiment in stream-of-consciousness writing…please follow along….
Outside of class, I am learning to manage my email. I was overwhelmed by the volume of messages I was getting from our class listserve. I toyed with the idea of changing my email address so that my home account would not be flooded with our [...]
