Final Reflection

Thoughts...
What do you feel is the most useful technology (or teaching approach) you have learned this semester?
I loved the imovie technology as well as learning about mindmiester from other people in the class who did that for their personal technology project.

* How do you plan to use this or other technologies in your future teaching?
Group projects, personal writing, book reviews/intros. etc. etc.


* How can you use technologies (the ones we learned or others) to engage your students in ACTIVE learning?
They can make movies for their assignments and also use technologies such as mind miester and prezi to help them write drafts for their papers.

Best Accomplishment

I really enjoyed doing the internet safety assignment. Surprising, I know. But it was a good reminder to me of the importance of educating parents and youth about the internet and proper "cyber etiquette."

However, I also have to say, I really learned a lot from making my multimedia presentation using iMovie. This was a valuable assignment that I will definitely use both in my future personal life and hopefully incoporate aspects of it into my classroom/student assignments. The link for my movie is HERE.

Wiki Contribution

For the wiki, I put the blog for Teaching Authors as my blog link. And here is my lesson plan and artifact on the wiki.

Personal Tech Project PREZI!

For my personal technology project, I learned about prezi.com I posted in my previous blog post the lesson plan for this technology. For my artifact, I created an outline like I would want my students to create. It is a simple and useful way to organize thoughts and can be as detailed as desired. HERE is my prezi for a sample Shakespeare paper. Go team!

Personal Technology Project

Prezi is a great online resource for students and teachers alike. For my Personal Technology Project, I will be using prezi as a way to introduce an aspect of the drafting process to students. My artifact is the simple model which would be shown to students to help them in creating their own pre-draft outline. The lesson plan for this lesson is here.

Multimedia Project: My Antonia Intro. Movie

Multimedia Project: My Antonia

You can view my storyboard for this project HERE.


Now, to put it to movie format...

Teacher Tube and Copyright Delights

We Didn't Start the Fire (History Video)
While this video is very well done and entertaining, it has some copyright issues. Mr. Allsop uses the entirety of Billy Joel's song "We Didn't Start the Fire" and fails to cite it, even if he did somehow have permission to use the whole song instead of a 30 sec. clip of it. The other issue lies in the lack of citing the images and movie clips embedded in this music video.

Hunger Games Trailer
This short video is excellent. The music is the original work of the video creator and the images are all from Creative Commons!

Internet Safety: Part II

I talked with my mom about all that I had learned doing this assignment, and learned that she had seen parts of the PBS Frontline Special, Growing Up Online, when it first aired a year or so ago. We discussed the detriments of gaming and how that has played into my parents philosophy on parenting. We weren't allowed to have any video games in the house and computer games were never expected to be a part of how we spent our time. It was also important that our computer was always in an open area--which was something I noticed in the Documentary--every teenager had their own computer/laptop in their room. This is unwise for several reasons but especially because it alienates the parents from knowing for what exact purposes their child is using the computer.

Additionally, I explained to her how easy it is for someone to steal an identity with just another person's NAME, ADDRESS, and BIRTHDATE. This led into our conversation about FACEBOOK and its detriments. My younger sister is in Junior High and got a facebook after meeting new friends this past summer at a camp. However, she spent increasingly more time on it in the Fall until she made the [hard] decision to delete it just last month. It was a time-sucker and also just causes a lot of unnecessary problems/drama in teenagers' lives. As the Documentary showed, it can lead to cyber-bullying and real-life fights as well.

Overall, my discussion with my mom was positive. I emphasized the importance of teaching children to use their time wisely for both academic purposes and for personal gospel-living purposes. How are we supposed to "build the kingdom" if our time is always occupied with social networking sites or virtual gaming? My mom is one of the best teachers and I know and will continue to stay connected and open to discussing these issues with my younger siblings.

Internet Safety

For my internet safety assignment, I read "Things As They Really Are" by Elder Bednar and "Just a Game?" taken from the August 2009 Ensign. I also watched the newsreport on teens sharing information and parts of the PBS Frontline special Growing Up Online.

With the recent explosion of online gaming, social networking sites and the popular movie "Avatar," I found these articles especially applicable to both my future family, friends and classroom. It is disturbing to realize exactly how much virtual reality is affecting authentic reality/relationships--especially among teenagers and young adults.

Elder Bednar emphasizes the importance of living life authentically by not letting Satan distract us or minimize the importance of having a body. One of my favorite quotes is:

"Our physical bodies make possible a breadth, a depth, and an intensity of experience that simply could not be obtained in our premortal estate. "

The Ensign article explained what is called Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (or MMORPGs). I was unaware of these types of games and now better understand their addictive nature.

From a future teacher's standpoint, it is alarming how much time students waste on these games, neglecting school work and community involvement. One student explained on Growing Up Online that "...probably 8/10 students use sparknotes, the other 2 don't read..we just don't have time." The irony is that students DO have time, they just spend it on mind-numbing entertainment and social networking sites. The documentary also showed teens who were "living their lives essentially online...the internet is always a willing listener" and teens who explained, "You can be more crazy online...I can be 100% myself."

From a gospel standpoint, it is spiritually deadening to be so caught up in technological activities that they become more important that real life and relationships and serving the Lord. Elder Ballard was quoted in the Ensign article to say that,

"Virtual reality must not become [our] reality.
It takes time to develop the attributes
that will help you to be a well-balanced person.”

The videos also discussed the importance of teaching SAFETY on the internet to students.
Personally, I didn't realize that all someone needs to steal your identity is the combination of these three things:

1. Real Name
2. Address
3. Date of Birth

AHH. SO MANY TEENS/PEOPLE POST THIS INFO. ON THE INTERNET--ESPECIALLY ON FACEBOOK.

my goodness. As one woman said in the video, it is so important to
"teach good cyber-citizenship."

So, without further ado, I will explain how my teaching of such information went when I called up my dear mother to discuss this all with her...

Classroom Site

O, the delights of trying to compose the perfect class site.

I think I will use wordpress or blogger if ever I have a classroom site
because google sites makes me crazy just a little bit.
Well. Actually, I don't know if learning another site's method would make me even more crazy..hmm...

Anyway, I've been working on this for many moons and I'm going to call it good.
Time to focus on moving forward at the desired pace for the rest of our assignments, you know what I'm saying? Yes. Excellent.

So, without further ado, I give you:

Ms. Garlock's Eng11 Classroom Google Site.

Google Readership

To begin my Personal Learning Network (PLN), I subscribed to five (5) blogs that relate to English/English Teaching/Technology.

The first is the HuffEnglish.com website which deals with issues, ideas, and various discussions happening specifically in English Education and Technology.

Next, I chose a blog that is updated by an English teacher whose focus is on teaching Shakespeare at a high school level. It the Shakespeare Teacher blog. There are definitions of hard words/concepts, games, and riddles regularly posted.

Third, I saw this next blog on a few of my classmates' PLN and it's a really great resource: the Six Children Authors/Teachers blog. Their perspective on Youth Literature will be invaluable to consult when choosing what novels are best for my future classrooms.

Fourth, The Cool Cat Teacher Blog, is all about teaching content with the new tools available to teachers. I love that the perspective of this blog is that teaching is a "noble calling".

The last blog I'm following, Powell's Books-Review-a-Day, as it was recommended by my respected colleague katie hatch. This site is important to me as I need to stay up-to-date with the best books on the market. These reviews will help me to know what is worth the time to read/recommend to others in my class and life in general.

this is my recommitment post

dear self,
you have neglected your IPT blog for quite some time.
I know it's been crazy. You've been intimidated. Etc.
HOWEVER,
From this moment on, you will be 100% on top of the assignments in this class
and
you will catch up on all assignments you still need to turn in.

Go Team,
amanda laRene garlock

Curiosity and such.

Well team,
it's time for a new adventure.

While I have been familiar with technology ever since Juno e-mail services came into existence, the truth is I have only just skimmed the surface of an intensely deep and important area of study called "TECHNOLOGY LAND"...that is, up until this very day. This Very Day of IPT 286.

I am looking forward to delving deeper into the benefits of technology in the classroom and how I can specifically apply it to assignments/teaching lesson plans in my future English classes. With an increased number of students who have access to the internet/web 2.0 programs, it is vital that educators (i.e.- me) learn how to best enhance students' education through the use of technology.

My curiosity is peaked, the fishes are swimming (see sidebar), and, Team Jumprope, it's clearly time to get technological.