I am shocked that so many employees will only do the minimum when it comes to their jobs.  How are there still people with jobs at the college level who refuse to better themselves and their best practices?  While we are on the subject of shocking occurrences: I saw a full time instructor today who was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.  They were on their way to teach three classes for the day.  How does that represent our college in a positive way?

I have just returned from the National Symposium of Student Retention in New Orleans and I love being around like-minded colleagues.  People who are inspired to benefit their college in some type of capacity. 

Networking with so many fellow inspirationalists was wonderful.  It was a true representation of  creating interpersonal relationships.  I was well rested and raring to go back to our 5-year Collaborative Learning initiative until I ran into the reality of negative people....UGHHHH!

E-Portfolio Reflection

• I have developed skills that have changed my view of technology, teaching, and learning. Like many aspects of life, history seems to repeat itself. Within creating a curriculum there are three focal points that should be addressed: Subject matter, society, and the individual student. Curriculum has come a long way from the colonial era where there was no real need for formal education or subject matter. If there was formal education it was often based on societies views upon religion. Currently we have seen a push for Tyler’s model of curriculum where there is a linear subject based approach to curriculum. With the technology that I have learned to integrate into the classroom, I will be able to focus on the goals and the priorities of learning rather than the end result. The process throughout being digitally literate is far more useful in our students’ future than that of a traditional classroom.
• Working on the E-Portfolio has helped me to think about and demonstrate my strengths and skills and become a more self-directed technology learner and a better teacher. Within the article, Researching Electronic Portfolios and Learner Engagement: The REFLECT Initiative (2007), Dr. Barrett clarifies how electronic portfolios could be very beneficial to a classroom and to the student. “To effectively use portfolios for assessment, a learning organization needs to establish a culture of evidence. Evidence in an electronic portfolio is not only the artifacts that a learner places there, but also the accompanying rationale that the learner provides: their argument as to why these artifacts constitute evidence of achieving specific goals, outcomes or standards. Furthermore, just because a learner makes the claim that their artifacts are evidence of achievement, in "high stakes" environments, the evidence needs to be validated by a trained reviewer, using a well-developed rubric with identifiable and specific criteria." I have learned this statement to be true to some extent when I have had my students working on their in-room portfolios that were tangible not electronic. I believe this to be true even more so about electronic portfolios.
• The themes and patterns that emerged from my E-Portfolio were that of furthering my career. Everything that I added, from the pictures, to the spiritual autobiography, to the examples of my work were to showcase the skills that has made me a good teacher to a potential employer.
• The impact that making an E-Portfolio has made on me academically, professionally, and/or personally has been phenomenal. Not only can a student/teacher use e-portfolios for the process of learning, they can initiate conversations that teach educators different ways to alter their content and use student suggestions for different elements in the classroom. The effect of maintaining a reflective portfolio has great potential to support deep learning and ownership of the learning process. The learning process throughout this project has taught me a great deal about myself and what I have accomplished as an educator. There is something greatly uplifting about seeing all that you have worked hard for in one website that you can freely show others to improve your opportunities in the workforce.

Barrett, H. C. (2007). Researching Electronic Portfolios and Learner Engagement: The REFLECT Initiative. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(6), 436-449. Retrieved June 11, 2010,from http://www.helenbarrett.com/portfolios/JAAL-REFLECT3.pdf

Imovie Reflection

Danielle and Erin and I created an IMovie about digital Blooms Taxonomy and Constructivism. Blooms Taxonomy has evolved from basic classroom higher order of thinking to defined ways of critically thinking by creating, publishing, blogging etc. Constructivism ties in with the higher order of thinking in that the foundationally based thinking skills need to be in place in order to get to that next level that highly qualified teachers are supposed to be at.

Using a mindmap in the beginning helped with the brainstorming process. Since we had already worked with garage band and the podcast assignment the process went a lot faster on the audio part of the project. I worked on the script while Danielle did part of the research and found some pictures. After creating a power point, we took a screen shot and made all of our power point pictures that we then dragged into the IMovie. It was slightly difficult to integrate the music, soundbites, and the voice over, but soon we figured it out. We were able to find royalty free soundbites that went along with our pictures. Danielle also found a friend who composes music, so that part of the project was very simple. Using smart art and google images using a strict filter to obtain royalty free graphs about blooms taxonomy and constructivism.

Google Doc/Site collaboration site: googledoc

Bibliography:

Blooms and ITC Tools. (n.d.). Educational Origami. Retrieved June 15, 2010, from http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom%27s+and+ICT+tools

The Connected Classroom. (n.d.). Dell. Retrieved June 15, 2010, from http://www.techlearning.com/article/8670

McKenzie, W. (2004, March 1). Technology Constructivism. Educational World. Retrieved June 15, 2010, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech005.shtml

Project 3 Podcast Assignment Reflection

Abstract:
The intention behind this podcast was to educate life long learners about digital citizenship and literacy. The members of my group gathered information from a plethora of resources to give a top down affect of the positive and negative affects of having a digital footprint, how being responsible on the internet can contribute to your success, and what tools digital literacy can give to the average teacher, parent, life-long learner etc.

Reflection: I found the process of implementing what we have learned to be pretty much on target. Our mindmap helped us organize our thoughts on what we would like to do before going on with the actual script writing. It also helped with putting the subjects into sequential order before beginning. Erin and Danielle were very open with what they wanted to do and we quickly learned what each other's strengths were and where our talents could best be useful. The tutorial on garage band was fairly self explanatory and we easily navigated through the process. Overall this was an assignment that I feel comfortable using within the classroom to accomplish tasks such as completing a presentation and submitting it via podcast in order to integrate differentiated instruction.

Bibliography

Center for Digital Literacy. (n.d.). Center for Digital Literacy. Retrieved June 9, 2010, from http://digital-literacy.syr.edu/

"Cyber Ethics." Symantec - AntiVirus, Anti-Spyware, Endpoint Security, Backup, Storage Solutions. 19 Feb. 2007. Web. 8 June 2010. .

"Cybercrime.gov." Welcome to the United States Department of Justice. Web. 9 June 2010. .

Harris. "YouTube - Digital Footprints - Your New First Impression." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 09 Nov. 2009. Web. 8 June 2010. .

Koppel, Ted. "Koppel on Discovery : Your Digital Footprint : Discovery Channel." Discovery Channel : Science, History, Space, Tech, Sharks, News. 10 Sept. 2008. Web. 8 June 2010. .

Madden, Mary, Susannah Fox, Aaron Smith, and Jessica Vitak. "Digital Footprints | Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project." Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. Pew Research Center, 16 Dec. 2007. Web. 8 June 2010. .

"News and Announcements Display Page." CMS. Cyprus Neuroscience and Technology, 26 Jan. 2010. Web. 8 June 2010. .

Perez, Sarah. "Calculate Your "Digital Footprint" with New Tool from EMC." ReadWriteWeb - Web Apps, Web Technology Trends, Social Networking and Social Media. 24 Mar. 2009. Web. 8 June 2010. .

"Rules in Cyberspace." Welcome to the United States Department of Justice. Web. 11 June 2010. .

Visual Literacy: An E-Learning Tutorial on Visualization for Communication, Engineering and Business. (2008, February 7). Visual Literacy: An E-Learning Tutorial on Visualization for Communication, Engineering and Business. Retrieved June 10, 2010, from http://www.visual-literacy.org/
Click Here to see our Collaborative Google Doc

podcast


Digital Citizenship and Literacy Podcast by Danielle Johnson, Erin O'Leary and Malinda Mansfield is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Toss the Traditional Textbook: Revamping a Curriculum

Having an open source based text curriculum would idealy less financially straining and if teachers are creating it (which most of our schools do not let our teachers integrate their input into the curriculum) then you would think that you would be focused on the student's need in a less prescriptive way of developing the curriculum. One of our reading Common Core Standards is to integrate theme across genres. How easy would that be in an online diverse learning community? "For public schools, however, there's a snag in realizing this vision; districts generally may buy primary textbooks only that their state has approved for adoption. (Most universities fall under no such restriction, and Connexions already boasts the content for any college student to print up a complete electrical-engineering textbook.)" This is true, since a majority of implementing curriculum is based on our stake-holders. Indiana has a strong influence from text-book adoption. This is such an unfortunate conundrum....kudos to El Paso for at least trying.

Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0

Despite "social learning"- Employers still want to see that degree. When Brown and Adler spoke of the educational needs saying, "If access to higher education is a necessary element in expanding economic prosperity and improving the quality of life, then we need to address the problem of the growing global demand for education, ... the world is changing at an ever-faster pace. Few of us today will have a fixed, single career; instead, we are likely to follow a trajectory that encompasses multiple careers. As we move from career to career, much of what we will need to know will not be what we learned in school decades earlier. We are entering a world in which we all will have to acquire new knowledge and skills on an almost continuous basis." It reminded me of my own current situation. I was recently laid off and went to the unemployment office to inquire about a grant that would help you with school funding. I thought that this was a perfect opportunity to alleviate some of the financial burden and since I have only 5 classes left, it would match up pretty darn close. This is the response I got after knowing that I was almost done with the Master's program at IUSB, "Well, this program is really for those people who could increase their chances of getting a job." I couldn't help but to look at her like she was a complete imbecile when I said, "Well, if a school is highering an English Teacher, would they more likely higher the English teacher with a bachelors or a masters degree?" Of course, I fought and now I have to write a proposal stating how it would help me in the workforce. Good god, do they not understand that you can't get anywhere with out a degree and soon it won't be good enough just to have a bachelors?

Lifelong Learning Video

Schools Kill Creativity...what? no way!

This speech does remind me of the curriculum theorizing; Critical-Exploratory. (Exploratory Curriculum) It's based upon the idea that diversity in individuals should be celebrated. Isn't that what Ken Robinson was talking about? I think in terms of what he feels as the past or present not being up to par with the curriculum's integration of creativity is best applied if all teachers are willing participants in the future. I will have to say that I feel that I am fairly creative in the classroom. Could I implement more creativity within my classroom environment. Sure I can, but we then must go back to previous articles which spurred many conversations about the classroom isn't always going to be fun and entertaining (Engage me or Enrage me).

Creativity in my own classroom is used through scial context, personal experience, and different perspectives. It has everything to do with the individual student and while they are applying something from their own lives, they are accidentally learning the concept or the state standard that was the original objective.