Elvin's Blog

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-26T11:17:00.001-08:00

The last few weeks have been really busy for me, as usual. However, with projects for both my classes being due on the same day (as usual), the quarter ending at my school and grades needing to be finalized, wedding planning activities, church, and everything else, I've been really stretched out. At the end of every marking period, I always run into this big crisis of being behind in grades and having a stack about a foot high of papers that need to be graded, and, even worse, read . . . ha.

I spent my first ever Thanksgiving without my family this year. I wasn't able to make it to my grandmother's house in time to spend any significant time, so i just didn't go. it's a long story. However, I did get the opportunity to give out food and clothing to homeless people in Lakewood, NJ in the the early morning of Thanksgiving Thursday. It was an eye-opening and rewarding experience. Many people don't realize that there are people in our modern high-tech that live in forests in tents packed together.

The project that I completed most recently for my EDTC 621 required us to create digital stories. While I have previously used photo story, movie maker, youtube.com, and many of the other resources I ended up using for the project, working with these programs again made me aware again of the great potential of their use in the classroom. However, the drawback would be that i requires a lot of time to produce many of these projects. However, i suppose once you create them, you can use them for several years. I plan to use these programs more in class.

Mississippi, Puerto Rico

2007-10-19T17:20:00.000-07:00

Forgive me blog father, it's been about 20 days since my last blog-fession.

Yes it's been a while. I have been very busy, as teachers always are. They are implementing "data driven assessment" in my school. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's using test scores to direct and focus instruction. At least that's how they're using it in my school. So, all the classes are taking exams to see where they are in Language Arts and Mathematics. What they hope to do is concentrate instruction on the problem areas. If the students are struggling with vocabulary, then the tests will reveal that, so we can work on their vocabulary. I think it sounds like a good idea. We got the idea from another charter school (I think it's called Northstar), and it's working well for them.

Anyway, so that was another load of work for us at my school. Because we had to administer and grade the exams. And it was time consuming. But what annoyed me the most was that they emailed us to tell us that "it should take you no longer than 20-30 minutes to grade." Well it took me 2 hours. And it came in a week where 2 hours was a big deal for me. Also, I had to fly to Puerto Rico for a funeral. I missed 3 school days, I was there for 5 days. By the way, just in case you didn't know, Ponce, Puerto Rico is hot in October.

As far as our class goes, while in Puerto Rico, I joined a group for our the WebQuest project. Everything is going well. The ladies got it started, and it looks like my role for this particular project will be more on the technical and visual areas. We're using a site called www.Zunal.com, and it's a pretty good webquest site. They have the format set out for you so a lot of the work is already done. I would recommend it for anybody in class who still may be looking for a site to host their webquest. Ours centers around getting our students to create a canoe tour for the Mississippi River. It's due this coming week, so you'll get a chance to see it. If for some reason anybody is interested. On a similar, somewhat funny note, my web quest work has been making me think of Deliverance . . .

180 & 360

2007-09-28T11:39:00.001-07:00

The past week has been an interesting and busy one for me. But I don't know any teachers that aren't busy. And if I did, I would hate them. However, now that I think about it, one of my best friends is a gym teacher in New York City, and all he ever talks about is how easy his job is. I hate you Dave.

Anyway, I thought I would take this opportunity to remove my foot from my own mouth. In the discussion board for EDTC 621 (Using the Internet in Education) I stated how I thought the Bloglines web site was something that I would never use. I felt (and still feel, to an extent) that the whole blogging process can get very time consuming and complicated. I don't have time to sit there and read all the blogs on my feeds. CNN pumps a few dozen daily by itself. Of course I know that I don't HAVE to read through them all, just skim and see what I think is interesting. It still takes a lot of time though. If you look to the left, I count 166 (and if I had any sense I would have noticed that Bloglines tells you how many new articles there are and I wouldn't have added them up) new blog articles from when I last logged on yesterday. And I'm just getting started. I know there will be at least a dozen more feeds that I'll want to subscribe to by the time November rolls around.

With that being said, after I posted my opinion for Bloglines in the discussion forum, I immediately the next day found a great use for it. I ended up finding a sports writer from ESPN that was talking about the Michael Vick case from the standpoint of race relations. I had been looking for this for some time to use in my History of Sports class. So, my class and I will now be following the story as it unfolds, referring to Howard Bryant of ESPN; and Bloglines is helping to make it possible. So yes, I am doing an about-face on my position on Bloglines. It is useful!

On a personal note, Halo 3 was released three days ago on the 25th, and I still haven't played it! My fiancé bought it for me for my birthday (the 23rd), but I haven't had a chance to pick it up. Plus, I don't even own an XBox 360, which I need to play it. So, I have a sneaking suspicion that she bought it for me because she knew I couldn't play it! The control games and the psychological warfare, it never stops. And I really need to play it, so that I can make good on my promise to give the president of NJCU a beating in any Halo game of his choosing. I spent my lunch duty on Thursday talking to students about Halo 3. We're going to try to have a tournament in my school this year, and I want to participate. I'm gonna teach the kids yet another lesson. I may not have any hair, but I'm not old!

NECC Resources

2007-08-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

The resources provided by Dr. Mullane from the NECC were, for the most part, interesting and useful. Some of the sites provided products that are geared toward enhancing instruction, both in the form of software and hardware. Then there are the sites that function to provide educators with "ready-made" materials. These sites have the potential to be very useful. Some of the content can be taken and used as is, and some can be used as a starting point, where a portion that is relevant can be extracted and built upon. For me, these are very helpful because I find the life of the teacher to be demanding and sometimes I like to scavenge wherever i can.
Two of my favorite sites were Thinkfinity.org and teacherTube.com. Thinkfinity.org is a well organized site full of resources from lesson plans, student activities, professional development, and even free online learnign course. The content spans K-12 subjects and has content for parents to reinforce their child's learning outside of school. TeacherTube.com, just liek it sounds, is like YouTube for teachers. It is strictly for videos that serve one of two purposes: (1) to provide instructional videos for educators on a vast number of topics. (2) to provide videos that educators can show to students as part of instruction.
there were also some sites that I found to be rather useless. Some of these related to hardware that were priced far out of my or my school's budget. One particular site I disliked was explorelearning.com. This perfoms somewhat of the same function as a Google search on education topics, except with ten times less effectiveness and efficiency.

Reflections on Introduction to Authoring Tools

2007-08-06T05:53:00.000-07:00

This course has been a great learning experience for me. Although I have struggled to keep pace with the work, I think I have gained valuable knowledge to help me be a more effective educator. As my comments in other discussions and posts have stated, I feel that e-learning and Authoring Tools are the means by which educators will reach the new generations of learners in the near future.

But, I think there is a great danger where schools (administrators and teachers) try to integrate just for the sake of integrating. They do not take into account the necessary training and planning to be successful. When content created and organized by authoring tools is used in instruction, there is the potential to attract and motivate students, as well as target multiple learning styles. However, this must be done thoughtfully, with a defined method and goal.

One particular area of interest for me were the technology standards that we reviewed for class. I think that these can be somewhat lofty goals for schools, depending on the school district you are working with. With my experience in urban education, I think some people are still unaware of the obstacles that lie in the way of bringing educational technology to students. Between insufficient budgets and misappropriated budgets, the hardware and software simply is not available. And, while many students in these areas do in fact have computers at home, they are often antiquated and unable to operate many useful software packages, if in fact they even acquire the software. This is a big difference from a more wealthy home where the family computer may have the entire Microsoft Office Suite, Quicktime, products from the Adobe line, etc.

Therefore, I feel that the integration of educational technology which will allow educators to use Authoring Tools effectively is in the distance for many districts around the country. However, I do feel that one of the main causes for optimism is the new generation of educators who are very willing to begin integration and perfect it; because they have grown up with it and see its potential. Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed the course, the reading material, and the discussion forum as a venue to exchange ideas.

NETS: Old vs. New

2007-07-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

With the release of the new NETS standards (NETS Refresh - very clever), we can now take a look back at how far we've come, or haven't come, in the last nine years. The old version of the standards were released in 1998 in an effort to guide educators in our quest to prepare our students for the "real world." But not only to be able to pass their state exams, and know that the United States has 50 states, and that Romeo loved Juliet, etc. The goal was to make sure that students were heading out of high school with certain skills that would enable them to succeed in today's high-tech world. Students should be able to use a computer, at least basically. They should be able to connect to the internet, locate resources (including web-based resources), decide what is relevant and useful, and discard the rest. Then, they should be able to interpret that information and present it in multiple formats, depending on requirements and effectiveness (text document, presentation, spreadsheet, etc.) And, possibly even more importantly, students should develop effective group/team working strategies, problem solving skills, and critical thinking. In my opinion, this is what it is all about. This way, when our students enter corporate America, or start their own businesses, or head off to college, they have the tools necessary to succeed and excel. However, in my experience with urban education, these goals are a long way away.

First of all, the majority of schools do not even have the capabilities to teach and facilitate these kinds of lessons. Not enough computers in the school, class sizes that are too large, and a large percentage of students who don't have access to a computer with an internet connection at home. This is a major problem in integrating different forms of educational technology into the curriculum. How can you make a class blog a part of the instruction if all of your students cannot access it. Can you really force them to go to the library? Sure our students can text message each other until the cows come home, check their emails and send email, and use MySpace.com, but most of them do not know how to effectively use a computer and the internet to complete a task, even a basic one. So, I feel that at this point, at least for sure in Jersey City (from dealing with my own students, talking with family of high school age, and talking with other educators in Jersey City), most students are not reaching the goals for the old NETS standards.

Now, as for the new NETS, as you can tell from the above, I think they are way above and beyond what most schools can hope to achieve given their facilities, budgets, and socio-economic status of the community. Also, I find the standards to be somehow redundant and vague both at the same time. I think they could probably be trimmed down where they overlap and then once that has been done, give a more detailed explanation of the objective. I think Gary Stager also makes a few interesting points in his article (Stager, 2007) about the new standards. He questions why much of the standards seem to center around students composing PowerPoint presentations. Is this a necessary skill in todays world? Also, what about other presentation software? These are interesting questions and, as he goes on, teachers must be careful to consider if all of the goals of the standards are worth dedicating instructional time to. There is no doubt that the use of technology in all its different forms is increasingly a requirement to function in society. But, how much of it is the responsibility and the realistic objective of public schools?

Stager, Gary (2007). Refreshing the ISTE Technology Standards. District Administration, June, Retrieved 07/29/07, from http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=1186&p=6#0

Multimedia Instructional Tools: Harnessing digital resources to enhance instruction

2007-07-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

This brief letter from the editors of eSchool News explains that in today’s society, it is a foregone conclusion that multimedia elements are an essential part of instruction; and that the use of such tools allow educators to target the wide variety of learning styles that are recognized today. The various educational technologies now available to us (blogging, podcasting, etc.) help to liven up lessons and draw today’s “digital natives” in to the learning process. However, educators must also realize that there comes along with these tools certain responsibilities, concerns, and new preparations. For example, educators have to discern what is useable and meaningful, and not just filler. There are so many resources available that one could never hope to be exposed to it all. The editors of eSchool News have put together “this in-depth resource center complete with integration ideas, best practices, quality web resources for streaming video, web sites for research and lesson supplementation, podcasting trends and ideas, and much more.” It is an excellent resource for any educator.

Ascione, Laura (2006, March 1). Apple offers free hosting of class lectures at 'iTunes U'. Retrieved July 15, 2007, from eSchool News Online Web site:
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstory.cfm?ArticleID=6153

One link that I followed led me to this article which details the experiment that took place at the University of Michigan’s School of Dentistry. Here, the students are using Podcasts of lectures to enhance their learning and reinforce lessons learned in person. The Podcasts are available for download through “iTunes U” at no cost. At Michigan University, the students have taken responsibility and perform all the tasks required to acquire, edit, and upload the audio files. Initially, the lectures were available in video files with audio, PowerPoint presentations with audio, and just audio. The administrators discovered that the most popular format was audio alone. This was attributed to that fact that today’s students are multi-taskers by necessity, and being able to listen to these lectures on portable mp3 players while doing other activities is a huge advantage. These students have kept the program running for three years now and have found it to be an excellent asset.

I think the use of lectures in the form of Podcasts can be a powerful way for students to reinforce what they have learned and possibly catch information that was missed the first time around. And I think this application is useful in the secondary level as well, not just in university. Particularly given the fact that I think sometimes in today’s society, with the knowledge and understanding about learning that has been attained, some people feel that the “lecture” is obsolete in the classroom environment. This is foolish. While today’s students are in fact multi-media learners and have a wide range of learning styles, there are still some subjects and some sets of information that can best be conveyed in this method. As an educator, there are moments when I plan lesson and I look at the available resources and weigh various activities for a certain subject. And to myself I say “this information was acquired in such and such away. And no group assignment, web quest, blog, etc. is going to get this information across to students quite as well as me just telling them about personally in a specific way.” And these would be times where a podcast could help students go back and review the information. Perhaps most for those with very short attention spans, or who are poor note takers. Or, even if a lecture wasn’t the initial means of conveyance, it could be available as a review resource. Indeed, this is a useful tool.

Hello Class

2007-05-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

Hello all. Welcome to my blog. I don't exactly know what to put here right now, so what I'll do is just put up a .gif of me doing my best Ralph Macchio impression. Bye.