online exposure

check this out, future teachers....be careful how you represent yourself and that YOU are a role model to your students!!

Summer is almost over!!

I hope everyone is having a good summer. I know I am! I got a part time job at an awesome clothing store, AJ Wright, so my wardrobe has greatly improved!! something i definitely needed too. I am really looking forward to student teaching in the fall: I will be teaching 11th graders at West Gene H.S. for the first 7 weeks and then working with 8 and 9th graders at Lincoln middle school working with Gwen Maturo. I know I will learn alot from her! I had the opportunity to participate in her discipline presentation when she came to the DATE conference at Cortland this past spring.

I also can't wait to see all my classmates again! I missed you guys!! Staci, Savanna, Jessica, Megan, Jami, Diana, Barb, Jill--you guys are awesome!! and I get to have Karen Stearns as my supervisor for student teaching. aww, I love her, she is the best!

I'll see you guys in a few weeks! I will be moving in with my aunt around August 27.

I LOVE this song!!!

Friedman was right!!

What are the hardest teaching positions to fill?
Math
20%
Science
21.33%
English
1.33%
Social Studies
0%
ELL / ESL
6.67%
Special Ed
28%
Fine Arts
1.33%
PE / Health
0%
Foreign Language
20%
Other
1.33%
Total Votes: 75

I copied this survey from the LeaderTalk blog. interesting isn't it? hmmm I think Friedman was right. OUr education system is severely lacking in good math and science teachers. How are we going to keep up with the rest of the world in regards to the new world where technology rules and those that don't know anything about it or can't play the game, will fall behind? How will we learn to play the game if there aren't enough teachers that can teach the future of America the necessary skills needed to survive in this new "flat fiber-optic world", this read/write Web 2.0? Just something to ponder about. I enjoyed reading the blog posts this morning from my classmates and reading the latest from Will Richardson and the numerous insightful comments that spawn from his posts. By the time I get to the bottom, I forget what I was going to say in response to his post. LOL Blogging is a whole new way of communicating which I can't seem to wrap my mind around yet, but I'm getting there thanks to this class.

Text-speak...here to stay??

I just read this great article about teaching english through the discussion and use of text messages. I think it is a great way to teach voice and tone and discuss the different levels of language and context in which people write in as a comparison to writing letters, essays, stories, etc. The article also talks about how texting helps ESL students improve their English skills too because they are forced to "speak" in their texts all in English instead of a mix of her first language blended with ENglish. Check it out and tell me what YOU think. Ban cell phones and text messages in schools or incorporate what teens use so fluently???

talk to me!!

Job interview

In order to show what I can do in the world of technology, I would first show them the blog I have been maintaining in my classroom, show the delicious tags I am connected to, and take them to my bloglines.com page which I have a direct link to on my blog. I would take them to bloglines because that is the central page I like to go to when i am looking for new content from my peers, and show that I subscribe to the New York Times, Will Richardson's blog and various other blogs. I will explain that this is how I stay connected to information in the internet and how easy it is to set up your own account and subscribing to different blogs is like having their blogs delivered right to your door step. I would explain that my students would be setting up their own bloglines of individual content on the web that they are interested in reading on a daily basis as well as also creating their own blogs on blogger.com because it is simple and fast and helps students stay connected to one another outside the classroom. I would incorporate blogging and commenting on classmates' blogs as part of the curriculum and allow students to use their blogs to submit homework assignments, post them directly to their blog.

Having my students create their own blogs and using these will be the vehicle for turning in homework assignments and responding to their classmates work. It will provide students with the independence to write in the medium that they are used to writing in: in front of a monitor and typing on a keyboard. This relates to the NYS standards in that it allows students to write their own blog posts, read their classmates blogs and various other sites on the web. Here is a link to my blog for my new English writers

The url is ela7thgrade.blogspot.com

Please read...or you are likely to get sucked into the quiet vacuum and the world as you know it will be no more!

All this talk about giving our future students the tools they need to be critical thinkers of the media in all its forms--I think we also need to teach them to critically analyze literature/textbooks they are being given to read in their classes at school. But we already know that. Before we can do this though, we need to do this for ourselves and take a critical look at the books we are required to read for our college classes. After reading Friedman all semester (I'm a little slow) I started to realize that he writes with a political slant towards liberalism and anti-Bush. For example, Friedman said that after 9/11, "our president didn't summon us to sacrifice, he summoned us to go shopping" (326) and then only a few pages later he says "and most of all, (we need) the right inspirational leadership--to enhance and manage the flow with the flat world" (329) This implies that we don't have that leadership now.
So anyway, I want to invite all of you to be aware of what we are reading even in our college classes--why do our instructors select the books they do? I'm not saying I don't like this book. It is actually very interesting and it is opening my eyes to a whole new--dare I say it?--"flat world" we live in now.

I found dirty little secret 3 fascinating: the ambition gap. He discussed that the American culture work ethic has weakened. One teacher that wrote to him said students lack creativity, problem-solving abilities, and passion for learning. THe parents of his students from India and Eastern Europe don't think kids are given enough homework and it isn't challenging enough....and American white middle class parents say the 5th grade work is too hard!

I really liked what Friedman said on page 344 about an ideal country in a flat world is one with no natural resources because then they "tend to dig inside themselves"
Taiwan, for instance, has "nothing but energy, ambition, and talent of its own people--and today it has the 3rd largest financial reserves in the world." This is amazing to me and I'm starting to realize that we really need to open our eyes to the rest of the world and how fast they are catching up to us.

I will just leave you with this one last quote which I think sums up the US mentality to a T:
"In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears--and that is our problem."