This Semester and My Future Classroom

I think I have learned more than I realize over the course of this semester. I have been challenged to think outside the box, creatively speaking, and to see technology as a tool in my hands that can be as big or little as I choose to make it. If I want to grow in my skills and knowledge and desire to help others do the same, especially in my classroom, then technology can be an excellent, highly effective supplement to my normal instruction.

Perhaps the most useful programs to me were PowerPoint (because I learned how to use it beyond the “boring” and traditional ways I have seen it used), and WebQuest (since I had never used it before).

MovieMaker by Windows was a fun, useful tool as well, but I did not enjoy using it as much as the other programs. This became especially apparent to me through our fieldwork experience. However, it was exciting to teach students a new program and watch them collaborate to produce something worth sharing; it helped other students gain a stronger grasp on the themes of the book they were reading after viewing the work of different groups. MovieMaker can be appealing to students, especially at on the secondary level, because it develops similar critical thinking skills as planning to write a paper about certain themes or concepts relating to a novel, in a fun, fresh way (incorporating sound, pictures, and other forms of digital media).

All in all, this class greatly increased my enthusiasm for continuing my own education in the area of technology even as I begin to teach it. It also helped me discover many useful techniques and methods of incorporating it into my curriculum that will not only engage students of various ability levels and learning styles, but will afford them the opportunity to grow along with our unbelievably fast-paced, technologically-driven world.

Technology as it Should Be in the Classroom

Technology is an essential tool for educating students at the secondary level. If adapted properly and presented by a rightly qualified instructor, relevantly implemented technology can become a central part of the language arts classroom. From class blogs and WebQuest sites to film projects and PowerPoint presentations, the realm of possibilities is endless. It sparks enthusiasm by making learning fun for the students as well as the teacher, and encourages interaction with peers. However, the technology must be relevant and consistent to the core curriculum and act as an enhancement to traditional methods of instruction in order for it to serve its purpose. For this to happen, students must be met at their individual levels of ability with a patient, experienced teacher who is willing to coach and mentor them along the way while learning about new programs that are constantly changing.

Students must have exposure and practice with the tools that are implemented in the classroom on a regular basis if they are expected to build upon their current skills and grow in their knowledge of its use. Electronic and digital methods of scaffolding for a novel, for example, or introducing and launching students into a research project, can only be effective if both the teacher and students are confident in their abilities in the program or application being used. However, everyone has to learn something for the first time, and not everyone enters the classroom on equal footing in terms of their background experience in technology. This is one reason that cooperative learning can be so effective, as it is an ideal way for coping with discrepancies due to limited technology access outside of school (an issue for many students). They need time in-class in order to practice with programs being implemented, as well as to learn from each other.

Effective monitoring techniques must be in place at all times to optimize the implementation of technology in the classroom and for them to maintain safe use of the internet. Sending out frequent newsletters or notes home to parents, involving them in the learning process and informing them about the technology being used in our classroom is a great example of using technology while establishing and maintaining positive rapport with the other essential figures in the learning process.

Through positive enforcement made by the teacher and a strong, reliable network of staff committed to enhancing English education through effective use of technology, greater feats can continue to be accomplished that have never before been. If the teacher is enthusiastic and continually seeks to better his or her own skills in various areas of technology, as she aims to meet students at their individual levels of ability or experience, the students will be able to explore literature and discover new, fascinating ways to build upon their reading and writing skills.

Film Clip Project

Creating a lesson plan incorporating film was both fun and liberating for me. So I know that putting it into play in my classroom will make typical English literature instruction exceptionally interesting and relative to my students.

From the very first introduction of this assignment, I was excited because I know how much I personally love movies, and was ecstatic to hear about the positive reasons and suggestions for incorporating film into our unit plans. My assignment, which involves exploring characterization within the novel Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, engages students on many levels. Incorporating the movie in addition to the book creates variance from typical, sometimes narrowed instruction techniques, and appeals to students who learn best visually or audibly. By creating a worksheet relative to the concepts we are exploring for this particular lesson plan, students are also developing their listening and writing skills, since they have to pay close enough attention to the movie to answer essay discussion questions.

After seeing the possibilities and effectiveness of tying film into the normal literature and writing curriculum, I plan to use such ideas on a regular basis in the future. Even this semester, I have created several additional lesson plans for other classes employing the same concepts that I did for this project, and have worked on developing my technique for successfully teaching movies in addition to books.

PowerPoint with a Purpose

I learned a lot from this assignment in LAE4860. Before this class, I had only very basic knowledge of Microsoft PowerPoint and its capabilities. I never thought how to use it for interactive purposes in the classroom, to be more specific. My idea of using it for a class was to create an unoriginal presentation that included only basic, default templates available through the program, and was utilized as another boring way to present basic facts or give a lecture to the class. I never knew or explored the ideas of creating a highly interactive presentation as I now have in this course.

Some things I learned along the way include setting a timer to the presentation. This makes the final product smoother, more professional, and thus more functional for students. Now, with my slide show based on the young adult novel, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, my students can view this together with me, then access it from their own computers, and explore the links separately (and in this case, even access our class WebQuest to complete certain tasks assigned online). This makes the educational experience much more enjoyable and encourages cooperative learning as students may want to work with partners or need to be paired with one for assistance. Such technology is generally unfamiliar to the majority of children in our public schools, and everyone (including the teacher) can benefit from each other as they experiment with programs that are new to them.

I also learned several other “tricks,” such as how to paste a video clip directly into my slide show, or include a sound clip imported from another source besides PowerPoint. These additions to my slide show, again, only enhance the material being presented and provide greater appeal to my students. Making a typical research assignment such as those embedded within my presentation more lively and interactive is an excellent tool for the classroom, especially when it comes to scaffolding and preparing students to dive into a piece of unknown literature from a time period unfamiliar to them.

WebQuest!

This WebQuest experience really taught me a lot. It was not only fun to make, but fun to interact with in the end. It gave me a lot of creative liberty as the teacher. I can only hope that it would appeal as much to my students, which I do expect it will. Perhaps this is so because it will be especially designed for their class, and personalization always adds a nice touch.

I felt pretty confident before beginning the project, even though I had never created a web page working out of Microsoft Publisher before. It did prove to be a fun, stimulating experience. I learned a lot, such as creating an appropriate, functional layout. It also reiterated and gave me practice in some things that I already had previous knowledge of—i.e. creating hyperlinks, importing pictures, etc.

I highly recommend this as an effective tool, and without a doubt, intend to use it for literature/language arts instruction in my classroom. It is not only a fun project for the teacher, but it offers variety in the usual assignment of internet research or Microsoft publications.

Final Fairview Reflection

My personal experience at Fairview was, in general, positive and enlightening. I went, unsure of what to expect. At the least, I did expect most of the students to be familiar with conducting a web search via popular search engines like Google. However, very few had much access to the internet in the past; and this, in turn, forced me, along with my colleagues, to redirect our strategies in a sense.

During the first part of our fieldwork, I found myself becoming frustrated and discouraged, seeing that we were having to use the time we had hoped to play with the presentations, and make them fun, appealing, and interactive (which is ultimately the goal with a project like Windows Movie Maker) to instead, teach them basics such as key word searches and discerning a good source or picture suitable enough to use in a presentation. This particular case scenario provided many teachable moments. Once I realized the value of this concept, I picked myself up, and made the most of it.

Our mission, originally, was to connect our students to the wonderful world of Windows Movie Maker, or so we thought. Although we helped them achieve a level of exposure to the program, our main accomplishment seemed to deviate from our planned intentions. I was able to help students learn how to effectively search for the pictures or information they wanted, add to their ability to participate collaboratively, in addition to building their confidence as individual leaders in various ways throughout the project.

So maybe they did not fully achieve mastery in using Movie Maker, but they gained so much from this experience, as did I. I not only learned to work under pressure, within a stinted amount of instruction time and with technological limitations (lack of technicians on staff, computers freezing, etc.), but I also learned that every moment can be used for teaching, if I keep the right focus and attitude. And that is what we are here for. I am confident that most of these students walked away from this project feeling proud of their effort and excited to showcase the final product to their peers, and with a better grasp on the reading material and its themes. With that, I say mission: accomplished.