Teresa’s Blog

When I went to college the first time, I felt that most of the assignments were busy work and that I hardly learned anything actually applicable in the classroom.  I was so relieved to find that this wasn’t the case with this class!  I am so happy that every assignment actually applied to teaching and what I do in my classroom every day.  I learned new ways to combine technology with old-fashioned assignments and new ways to incorporate technology into every day.  I was thrilled to start using Delicious and love it so much that I have told friends and family about it.  I am also glad I have had this experience of writing in a blog.  This is something I am seriously considering using in my language arts classes either as a way for students to respond to my blog or for them to have their own.  Without this class, I would have never even thought about it.  I remember being surprised to learn how many more search engines are out there than just Google, and my negative opinion of wikis has been forever changed.  Even the assigned reading was useful as it gave valuable resources, information, and even provided examples.  More than anything, I am thankful that html is not a mystery anymore; when I was hesitant and unsure about having a class website before, I now am excited about making one!  As my first experience with an online class, this exceeded my expectations.  It was so much fun to share ideas with everyone through our assignments, and I particularly appreciated all of the personal feedback from Prof. Woolums.  My knowledge has expanded, my brain has been challenged, my mind is full of new ideas for teaching, and I feel even better prepared for teaching in a world where technology is rapidly advancing!

After a wonderful summer that ended much too quickly, today was the day-the first day of school!  To be honest, I was not wanting my summer to be over and could have used a couple more weeks, but that’s how it goes.  After spending days preparing my classroom and hours spent in meetings,  I was definitely prepared!  And even though I had to sadly say goodbye to summer, it feels great to be back with my students, doing what I love.   As I was looking out at the sixteen sweet faces staring back at me, I felt reassurance that I was born to teach.  The day went smoothly and was over before I knew it.  Even though I have quite a few students with difficulties and challenges, I think I am going to have a great class this year.  Actually, the most difficult aspect was the heat.  Yesterday we broke an old record with a high of 101 degrees.  Today was in the mid nineties but still felt sweltering hot with all of the warm bodies packed into the classroom.  I found myself yelling over the fan and eventually turned it to low so my voice could be heard.  Yeah, air conditioning would be nice about now, but the weather will cool down before we know it.  By the end of Ocober we will be surrounded with snow and freezing temperatures, wishing for these hot days.  There’s just one problem…after being in my classroom all day, my motivation to complete my own schoolwork once I get home is quickly waning.  And if I could just get used to waking up early every morning…

I have no idea why this popped into my mind, but I was thinking about assigning students to groups.  I am wondering how other teachers prefer to put their students into groups for group work.  I usually alternate between a few different methods depending on the assignment and my mood.  Sometimes I randomly assign them to goups (drawing names from a hat or something similar).  The positive is that students appreciate the fairness of this method and can’t complain if they are or aren’t with certain people.  The negative is that students may end up together that don’t work well together either because they don’t like each other or are distracted by their friendship.  Also, the abilities of the groups may not end up even.  Other times, I selectively put students into groups taking into consideration who I want working together and making sure I have high and low level students in each group.  The positive is that the ability of the groups is even.  The negative is that it can be more of a headache for me because students may try to throw a fit and ruin their group either because they don’t get to work with their friend or because they strongly dislike someone else in the group.  There are also times I let the students choose their own groups.  The positive is that they may be motivated to work better because they chose who they are working with.  The negative is that feelings may be hurt (especially with the girls) or that students have a hard time focusing on the task at hand because they are distracted by their friends.  I guess I feel that the whole point of working in groups is for students to learn to work together whether they like each other or not.  But some days I also feel that the struggle isn’t worth it.   I’m curious how other teachers feel about all of this.

Wow-html is intense!  I call it extreme exercise for the brain because after yesterday, my brain feels like it ran a marathon.  Making my web page was the most challenging thing I’ve done in a long time.  I will say though, as a word of encouragement for those who haven’t started yet, that it does get easier and make more sense the more you play with it.  It really feels like learning a foreign language.  Back when I was little and computers were a novel item, we had this dinosaur of a computer.  My brother and I would type codes onto this blank screen and it would make the computer do things like flash colors or be a rough form of a clock with hands that ticked.  I quickly grew uninterested but my brother pressed on.  Little did I know we were using html and I should have paid more attention.  Now my brother is a pro, but I struggled for hours to make the most basic webpage.  Anyway, I’m a person who needs to see the big picture before diving into the details, so I spent time reading through all the information and visiting all the links.  Then I was ready to open notepad and get started.  But it was really driving me crazy to follow the directions and type in all these strange things but not be able to see the result.  Luckily my good friend Charlene called me at that point and walked me through using explorer to go to the ftp, input my name and password, and then copy and paste to see the product on the web.  Thank you, Charlene!  Everything got way more fun once I was able to actually see what those codes were making.  I had the most trouble making my pictures show up.  After trying various fixes, something worked, even though I have no idea what was wrong in the first place or how I changed it.  Now I can look back on my experience and feel happy both for succeeding and for learning something new.  I hope to continue using, practicing, and improving my html skills in the future!   

I am feeling frazzled today.  There’s so much to do!  Of course, in the middle of it all my computer froze-so frustrating!  I finally finished a couple assignments that I have been wanting to get done.  And just in time too-my first piano student will be here soon.  I need to still get to the grocery store and bake four cakes tonight.  Tomorrow we have an all day meeting at school (and people always think teachers get the summers off).  And then every day after that is extremely busy.  In three weeks I will already be back in school. 

 Speaking of cakes, I made a fun cake for my mother-in-law’s surprise retirement party Saturday.  I wanted to put a picture of it here and have tired numerous times, but it just won’t work.  I clicked on “Add Media” and then “Add an image.”  I clicked “Choose files to upload” and found the picture.  Then I clicked “Insert.”  A blank white box comes up and in the corner it says “done.”  When I close the white box, I am back here with no picture.  I have tired both the Flash uploader and the Browser uploader.  I have also tried saving the picture in the gallery first.  Nothing works.  Does anyone know what I am doing wrong or why it won’t work?

These days I am always learning something new.  Today I am learning about wikis.  I had always thought they were something negative because people say to stay away from wikipedia since anyone can go in and change the information.  I didn’t even know that wikipedia is just one example of a wiki.  Now I can see that they do have value and definitely can be a good thing. 

I found a really cool online dictionary at www.visuwords.com that is a graphic organizer.  You should check it out!

Well, a month from now I will already be in my classroom teaching again.  It’s hard to believe the time is already creeping up on me.  I am excited to apply all these new things I am learning this summer; I just hope I can remember it all! 

Hmmm, I subscribed to all my classmates’ blogs with my RSS, Google Reader.  When I go to my google reader, the only new posts that show up are from Village Green.  So it looked like none of my classmates ever wrote a new post.  I knew that couldn’t be true, so I started clicking on the titles of the blogs and saw that there were new posts.  So I wonder why the new ones don’t show up in google reader.  They do for the other sites I subscribed to.  Maybe there is a setting I don’t know about.  Also, I added the del.icio.us widget to my blog but don’t see it.  I wonder why it isn’t showing up?

Pretend that you are sitting in class learning Spanish.  You are looking at a bunch of words on a page trying to imagine what they must sound like in a real conversation.  Suddenly your teacher surprises you by saying the class is going to try something new.  She has everything set up for video conferencing and tells you that you will be able to see and speak to someone from a Spanish-speaking country who is learning English.  Not only that, but these students are even your same age!  Spanish appears much more exciting and real as a student countries away shows up on the screen, and the two of you begin to have a real conversation.  You learn so much about this student’s culture because you get to see what this student looks like, hear the real accent, and even catch onto this student’s sense of humor.  You feel so good because not only is this student helping you with your Spanish, but you also get to help this student with his/her English.  You both go back and forth taking turns discussing in both languages, learn about each other and the countries you come from, and a friendship steadily grows.  As the class draws to a close, you realize that a whole new world has been opened up to you, and you can hardly wait for the next Spanish class and visiting again with your new friend through video conferencing.  What a remarkable way to learn, thanks to technology!

Top Ten Reasons I Love Summer

1. Freedom
2. Sleeping in and staying up late
3. Warmth of the sun on my skin
4. Being able to read to my heart’s content
5. Grilling
6. Not feeling rushed at night
7. Long evening bike rides or walks
8. Naps in the hammock
9. Watching my garden grow (and then eating the produce)
10. Hiking in the mountains

Wow, I had forgotten how fun learning can be.  I have learned so much the past couple weeks and have really enjoyed it.  It’s fun to know new things.  Now my head is swirling with ideas for how I can use what I am learning in my classroom.  I know I need to spend time teaching my students how to tell whether a source from the Internet is credible or not.  I have been thinking of how to use blogging with my language arts students.  RSS is a really cool concept that I had never heard of before, but I always wondered why different sites had a “subscribe” button.  And Del.icio.us is a neat bookmark organizer.  The only problem with learning all of this is that it is making the summer go way too fast…