Hamster!

Penguins!

Fish!

Jing Assessment

http://screencast.com/t/Ggwupvjb

Survey Monkey Assignment

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Wordle Assignment

I think Wordle would be really fun to use in an English classroom to help incorporate a visual aspect into the lesson. I like the idea of creating a Wordle out of student writing, either to look at it critically and become better writers, or just to see their words take a form outside of standard text, which might be more interesting to them after spending their whole day in class reading textbooks and doing worksheets. I like how Wordle adds another artistic element to writing, and I can see this really helping students become more involved in the reading and writing process by using a program like this in class.

Poll Everywhere Assignment

Make a live audience poll at Poll Everywhere

Replace audience response hardware with Poll Everywhere


I think this site could be really useful to take quick polls from students (duh) in order to find out a little more about them in a way in which they might be more enthusiastic. For example, teachers can find out about student hobbies, likes and dislikes, and even conduct a one to two point kind of extra credit assignment. I like how quick it is to take a poll and how teachers can find out some good information about their students through such an easy and approachable medium.

Using Second Life in the Classroom

This year I will be using Second Life in class, to see how well students like it and how it can fit into our English classroom experience. I do have some concerns about using such a program in school, but I think there are many interesting applications that can be employed in the classroom setting and from which I think students will really benefit. I would not be using this as core resource in class, and I will definitely be focusing on other modes of assessment and exploration in the class. I don't want students to get so involved with this game that they loose focus of the goals of the assignment or that other areas of their lives suffer. I do think that Second Life has some resources that will help students find new perspectives and learn about how other live. I would like students to use Second Life for extra credit assignments or as supplementary additions to class presentations and projects. Aspects of Second Life that I found particularly interesting was the Shakespeare world, the Van Gogh painting world, and other such realms that allow students to see things that they might not be able to see in real life or have an adequate experience of in textbooks or museums. Another realm that I found interesting (yet definitely a bit disturbing) was the one where students could experience what it felt like to be schizophrenic. I would encourage students to incorporate these worlds into their projects or research for the purpose of learning perspective and being able to step outside of their own individual realms of experience. I think that if I focus on conveying the importance of realizing other perspectives and different paths of life, then students will really enjoy broadening their frames of reference and looking into these various simulated worlds in order to gain a greater world view.

Diigo Assessment

• No soap radio - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Annotated
  
  
  • body of the joke is not related to the punch line itself, but is made out to be humorous by participants in the prank
  • No soap radio is a traditional punch line for a prank joke
    • Random?
  • The punch line is known for its use as a basic sociological and psychological experiment, specifically relating to mob mentality and the pressure to conform.
  • • False understanding is acting as if the joke is humorous when in fact the victim does not understand the joke at all.
    • Negative understanding is expressing confusion about what the joke means and feeling left out (e.g., "I don't get it"). The victim may switch to false understanding after receiving facetious derision from the conspirators. Normally after some time of negative understanding, the prank is revealed in full to the victim.
  • Two elephants are sitting in the bathtub. One elephant says to the other, "Pass the soap". The elephant replies to the other elephant, "No soap, radio!"
  • Two ducks walk into a bar but find that they have no money to buy drinks. They decide to go beg on the street. The first person they see is a white man. They ask him for money and he says, "Sorry, I left my wallet at home". The second person they see is a black man. (If the listener laughs here, anticipating a black joke, it is customary to reprimand them, saying things like, "Why did you laugh? Do you think black people are funny? Are you a racist?" until the train of thought is lost, then abruptly resume the joke.) The third person they see is a Czechoslovakian pianist. They ask him for money, and he turns to them, and says, "No soap... Radio?"

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Windows Movie Maker Assessment

Useful Tools from Class

I really like all the software and tools that we've learned in class so far. They're really interesting and I think they'll really help us as teachers when we're teaching in our own classes. I like that there are a lot of programs that we're learning about that we might not necessarily find out about on our own, and since we're learning them now we can try to incorporate them when we start student teaching, or they might even lead us to other programs that could be even more help. I really like the Google Forms that we just learned, and I think that would really cool to use as take-home quizzes or pre-assessment activities. I also had a lot of fun making a Prezi presentation, and I will definitely be using that in future class presentations in college and in my future classroom. I thought that was a really fun alternative to a PowerPoint, and I think students will be more interested looking at a Prezi and taking in the information I give out to them in that form.

I really want to learn more about how to use Microsoft Office more effectively, especially Word and Excel. Word is a program I use all the time, but there are so many tools that can be employed through that program, and I have no idea what they are or how to use them. I can only create simple documents, and I can barely make a simple spreadsheet on Excel. I feel like these are really important programs to know and use, and they are not as intuitive as some of these other programs we are being introduced to are. I feel like we could figure out how to use, for example, Zoho Writer and Prezi if we took enough time to figure out all the details of the program, but Word and Excel are not as obviously (to me, anyway). I would really like someone to go over these programs and introduce us to more of what these programs have to offer us so we can really use them as they are intended to be used, making full use of all the extras and characteristics that make them so useful and lasting.

Live Binder Assignment

                   

    

Poetry Unit

I think this Live Binder is awesome! It's absolutely chock-full of useful things to use in the classroom, as well as inspiration for me as a teacher that might help me come up with my own lesson or find other things that could be beneficial to my students. This is for a poetry unit, and the teacher who created it has everything very organized and planned out for day-by-day lessons and topics to be covered. I love that this teacher uses all kinds of outside sources - there are a few Prezis in there, a link to Globber, connections to a Jimi Hendrix song, and even a video from one of my favorite go-to gurus, StrongBad from HomeStarRunner.com. Along with the outside sources, the teacher posts very detailed lesson plans for each day that would really be helpful if I need a last-minute plan for a class, or just want to try out a lesson that may interest my students more. I love the resources used (Prezis, the StrongBad video, etc.), but not only would I use some of these resources in my lessons, but I would also just use them as a jumping-off point for my classes. I think it would be a lot of fun to use these resources, but I would also just like to model my lessons after these plans and learn to make my own lessons as fun as these without having to copy someone elses.