Reflections Toward A New Chapter

Though I have not been able to post here on Blogger in over a year as I was completing my education, I have been diligently hoping to contribute to this blog once the dust has settled.

Having placed my own feet into the role of a teacher with my own students and classroom to manage, student teaching was a revolutionary experience for me. Not only was I thrust into situations that I may not have been fully prepared for, but I was still able to grow from my occasional mistakes and be a better educator as each new challenge came my way. I managed to enhance my view of what an educator should be throughout those 8 months of fieldwork and student teaching. A teacher is not simply a care-taker for students while their parents are at work; a teacher is someone who continually reinvents the wheel and transforms education into not only a necessary learning experience but a worthwhile and meaningful exchange of ideas. It was immensely rewarding to see the lesson plans and ideas for different texts and subjects I had outlined come to life and impact my students in various ways. Though my students may not have always reacted as I had hoped to the material, I came to learn that this is a treasure within a classroom. Students master concepts differently and that is what makes education unique from other professions. There is no singular approach that can enhance learning for all students. I hope to impact my students so that they approach new concepts eagerly.

I am truly excited for this next chapter in my professional career. I am not sure what it will bring, but I am interested, eager, hopeful, and ready for a new challenge however it may come.

(18) Final Project - Technology Integration Plan/Matrix for "Increasing Students' Understanding of How Choral Readings Help Visualize Shakespearean Texts"

Technology Integration Plan / Matrix

What is Choral Reading?

Choral Reading is reading aloud in unison with a whole class or a small group of students. Choral reading helps build students' fluency, self-confidence, and motivation. Because students are reading aloud together, students who may ordinarily feel self-conscious or nervous about reading aloud have built-in support.

Session I: 

The first session of the lesson would focus on the Access and Analyze phases of the Media Literacy Cycle.  After students have completed reading Shakespeare’s The Tempest, via Literature Page Website, students would be introduced to how choral readings help them reconfigure their reading of the text.  Through direct teaching via explaining instructions I have displayed on a Smartboard, the students would receive an explanation of how the choral reading project will enhance their visual interpretations of a character in the text.  The Smartboard would be an important access tool for the Literature Page Website to show the class examples from the text that exemplify criteria necessary for their presentation.  Students would be given a handout to help them have an example of a typical speech length.  The Smartboard would also be used to access a video presentation to show the students a sample speech.

Students would use iMovie and Masher software for editing on class laptops to record physical interpretations of a speech from a character of their choosing. (Professional Development of these programs would be needed so that if questions or troubles arise, I can help fix them.) Students would be separated into groups to begin to choose a character whose speech they will read chorally for the physical and video presentation.  For homework, the students would begin the first of three to four journal entries via Penzu Online Diary or EduBlogs documenting their struggles and the process from which their project ideas have been conceptualized.  This would be a great interactive tool to help students interact, suggest, and comment on each other's thoughts for the projects.  Students would use these various editorial programs to become creative editors of their own digitally created content. They would be connecting previously accessed material via the text they read and apply that knowledge to new applications and constructs.

Session II:

The second session of the lesson would focus on the Produce aspect of the Media Literacy Cycle.  This portion of the lesson could be expanded into another session being added depending on the level of completion of student projects.  Students would continue collaborative work in groups to use iMovie and Masher software to piece together their video presentation with my supervision and assistance.  They would use these tools to become editors of their own product and content in various technological ways.  This would help them create their own version of Shakespeare's classic by digitally piecing together different forms of media and becoming their own directors.  Students might also use GoogleDocs to help textually construct their speeches and intonation cues so that they can access their speech materials outside of class from any computer, tablet, or smart device equipped to do so. Students might also use Skype, iChat, or Google to practice their choral reading amongst one another outside of the classroom if needed to enhance their collective ability to read cohesively and improve one another's fluency and intonation.  For their continued homework assignment, students would also continue to incorporate events and troubles they are encountering in their individual Penzu Online Diary or EduBlogs concerning their experiences with constructing their project.

Session III:

The final session of the lesson would focus on the Communicate, Evaluate, and Assess aspects of the Media Literacy Cycle.  Students would communicate by presenting their constructed materials to the class.  We would first have the choral presentations performed in the physical classroom followed by the completed and produced videos via iMovie and Masher software that would depict the same choral readings in a more directed construct.  Students would be given several copies of a rubric handout to complete while watching the physical presentations within the classroom.  This handout would be double-sided so that they can be used for each groups' physical and directed speech interpretations.  The "Student Assessment of Group Performance Rubric" would help incorporate peer-assessment into the class while allowing each student to interpret the performances they see for specific content criteria being met.  This would also allow students to provide some feedback to me as the teacher for certain content they felt should be praised for what they might have enjoyed in other performances.

As students conduct their peer-assessment, I would conduct my assessment of the physical performance using this rubric. We would then view the directed videos of each performance and evaluate/assess them using the opposite side of each rubric previously assessed for their specific group.  After all the performances were complete, for homework, the students would assess the performances again on their respective diary/blog and bring a close their thoughts on the choral reading experience stating what they have learned, how the experience has changed what they have read, and how other groups may have exemplified a particular speech differently from how they first envisioned it while reading.  

Lesson Plan Courtesy of ReadWriteThink.org

(17) Final Post & Debate - Man vs. Machine

This seemed like an intriguing prompt to bring in to close our debates about technology in the classroom.  Throughout this module, we have been discussing for and against technology being used in certain ways in different classrooms across the nation. Though we can all benefit as aspiring educators from technology becoming an ever-changing asset to the educational landscape, it's integration is still very debatable and sketchy. This blurb on the EducationWeek website caught my eye immediately and infers something quite important for my own subject matter.  Could it be too invasive for us to let a machine grade essays? A recent study suggests that machines can be just as useful in evaluating essays as a human is.  The subject is controversial.   Yes, I think that "automated grading would reshape assessment and reshape teaching".  But could it also hurt in the process?  Is this giving our students their best FAIR shot?


As an English major and aspiring educator, the aspect of "constructive criticism" for an essay or writing assignment is essential to maintaining an effective writing style, a strong writer's voice, and exploring the texts that we encounter all the time through different analytical lenses.  I was struck by this prompt because if an essay can be evaluated by a machine for every criteria that a professor can expect a student to expound upon, could English teachers be expendable and almost useless?  I can see how this technology may benefit by reducing the grading load that the teacher would have to evaluate, but it seems to be taking the place of an educator so much so that it is not facilitating help for the teacher, but shoving them out the classroom door.


Debates about this are truly important because they affect teachers being potentially replaced by machines that can do the same job. Technology is helping shape students of the future, but will it be the shaping force behind students or the shaping tool used by teachers to facilitate learning?  I am not sure that this tool can be used without potentially putting an expiration date on certain subject teachers.  It seems like a good tool that can be misled and become very problematic when evaluating students for necessary criteria. 


Though automated grading has been used for decades for standardized testing as well as Scantron tests where there is generally only one potential answer for a given question, this tool is providing the teacher help in grading student's work. This can helpful for teachers of any subject such as Math, Science, History, Music, and English.  However, when essays and written assignments are involved, it is different.  Essays generally involve personal opinion and individualized thought. I am not sure that an automated grader can help evaluate an essay for correct thoughts being expressed when they vary from student to student.  In this case, the variance is very wide and I don't see this being as helpful as some suggest.


What do you think? Does this make you nervous?  How do you see it?  Sound off with comments!

(16) Education Ratings for Digital Media & Content

As I was surveying the net this week, I came across this blurb on the Education Week website.  It brings up some interesting technology related presence and appropriateness in education debates.   I consider it to be thought-provoking and also figured I would bring it into this forum for proper discussion amongst aspiring educators.

While digital content is growing wildly into education through applications that are appropriate and some that are not so appropriate, a rating system has finally been unveiled to help combat how technology serves its users.  The rating system, released by CommonSense Media, was initially proposed in May of 2011, but has finally been launched online to help parents, guardians, and teachers alike to help modify the climate that children and students are exposed to when using technology to "enrich their minds".

Though we cannot monitor their intake and prevent them from their involvement in popular culture via social media outlets, we can moderate their involvement if something is deemed out of the range of age appropriateness.  I know that this may seem like we as teachers are acting like surveyors into our students' lives and are harboring a lifestyle on our students, but it must be seen that this is a preventative measure, a measure to help guard children from content that is not suitable for their age brackets.

This CommonSense Media website, currently hold 150 popular culture media apps/games/websites that are available online, on their cellphones, and are virtually available to them with a flick of their fingers with the technology on e-readers and tablets alike.  The website is updated regularly and is re-evaluated for certain content that allows it content to be reviewed, re-reviewed, and then appropriately rated consistently.  They are adding more websites/games/apps to their lists with ratings as they have begun to acclimate those that are out there.  You might be wondering how these ratings come about, and that is very important considering that it might be an invasion of privacy issue that you see this rating system providing instead of sensible media exposure to minors. "The ratings are created through a combination of input from academic experts, teachers, parents, and literature on contemporary learning skills, according to the release. They will be applied both to digital media created for general consumption and to media created specifically for an educational audience." When examining this statement, I would feel that parents would be more inclined to agree that technology be present in their child's learning for a specific lesson.  They can feel more comfortable and assured, as should any guardian, that their son or daughter is learning not only content that is consistently changing but that their exposure to the digital media is also appropriate for their age group and their cultural climate.

I think that this is a positive change to help enrich our students while also protecting them from content that is not suitable for them.  We cannot watch our students all the time, even while they are in our classrooms.  We do not have "eyes everywhere" as we were often told as students by our previous educators.  The facts are simple. We are responsible for their care and what they internalize in our classrooms.  This ratings website provides a safer notion of how educational development can occur and be fostered in our students without our students being exposed to potentially detrimental online materials.

Try to check out the EducationWeek blurb and also glance over/check out the CommonSense Media website to see some online items that are appropriate for students of various age groups.  The website provides materials for all students that are learning all different subjects.  This can be a useful and effective tool for any teacher, without specific concentration on only certain subjects.

What do you think?  Does the rating system seem inappropriate to be involved in a classroom climate?  As aspiring educators, do you feel this is appropriate?  How do you consider this change to the educational climate that our students will most certainly be affected by?

Sound off with your thoughts and comments.

Students will always be attempting to trick educators.  This will not change. This ratings website might help combat students from all types of distractions while trying to learn.  This student is viewing videos during classroom exercises and is practically focusing on nothing about the lesson.  Maybe things might be different, who knows...

(15) Interactivity #5 - A Standards-based Approach to Technology Integration

Lesson Plan Analysis Map With NETS-S Added

For the data collection purpose of this interactivity, I interviewed a 5^th grade Language Arts teacher in the Union City Public School District.  When asking her the suggested questions from the NETS Adoption Survey, she was particularly unaware that such standards existed in a specific format beyond the NJCCCS.  She said that most of the objectives from the NETS-T and NETS-S are woven into other standards based upon content area but are not as specifically interested in technology integration. As far as she was aware, these standards have not been implemented into her school or any other schools in the district.  While the district is attempting a digital conversion in some aspects, they have not fully adopted any of these standards with a full implementation but are making gradual, slow pace, changes to their teaching styles to be more acclimated with 21^st century learning.

Her reaction to the standards was particularly interesting.  She seemed unaware of their existence as a whole but was aware of their importance in some fashion because all of her colleagues, as well as herself, have been steadily changing aspects to students’ learning to prepare them for the future. Now aware of their existence, she believes this a better step to help create meaningful connections between what they are learning and how many ways they can learn it using different technologies.  She considers these standards to be “a strong way to increase digital involvement for both students and teachers, while the landscape of education is continually being redesigned”. Though this conversion is slowly taking shape with the addition of laptops for teachers and students alike, she feels that the district would require (1) increase in heavy funding to convert fully, (2) more staff and personnel dedicated to this focus, and (3) district-wide professional development in either seminars or training.

After interviewing and thinking about these responses, I was unaware of these standards as well.  I think they are a crucial design to help increase a digital participation and a more heavily structured adaptation to assist and redefine curriculum for 21^st century learners.  These standards serve a great purpose in the future of education as well as learning for all types of learners whether they are visual-spatial, bodily kinesthetic, logical-mathematical, linguistic, etc.  I was not surprised that she and most of her colleagues were unaware of these standards because I feel that despite their presence since 1998, their implementation is not as widespread as we might believe in education today.  Their importance is heavily known but the funding to adapt curriculum and staff may not be entirely there.

I feel that students deserve the education that our technology has paved the way for.  As a future educator, I feel that there is an importance that we intertwine these standards into our lessons so that students are not only receiving the best education they can be, but that we are also preparing them for the different landscape of education that is on the horizon.  

(14) Parental Involvement in Student Education Proves to be TOUGH WORK

In your opinion, are parents required to be involved in their child's learning?  This EducationWeek article focuses on this very issue and tries to elicit where exactly parents should be involved in their child's education based upon the funding given to schools by the government sponsored programs and laws.

Parental involvement in our students' education will always be relevant and necessary for successful learning to be reinforced. After reading this article, I do feel that it is essential that what we teach our students in a classroom is somehow reflected upon in some way, big or small, at home with interactions occurring between parents and students.  Through this interaction, parents are then able to gauge in how the students see the learning they are acquiring.  They can possibly help reiterate something that is missed, and help to understand the communal aspect of student learning and assistance. Though it is our role to educate, inspire, and elicit creativity in our students, it is a shared occupation that requires in some way that parents involve themselves in the students' understanding of concepts covered.  This is not to say that parents should be helicopter parents, hovering over their children, making sure that they understand the concepts that we as educators are teaching them.  It is more essential that parents understand their roles in facilitating responses to problems and helping to bridge the gap from what is learned in school to being a guide in the outside world.  

I think it is important that parents are involved.  I say involved because students need ACTIVE support in all areas for the learning they are internalizing.  This is not solely a teacher's responsibility.  If students learn something in school that is relatively understood as common knowledge, but there is no reinforcement outside of school, in any capacity, the chances of the student retaining that knowledge is slim and potentially non-existent.  This is how we as educators need to help facilitate that parents understand their roles in their child's education.  They will not be teaching them per se, that is OUR job.  They are however important roles models in reiterating and maintaining a productive environment for students to learn outside school.

The big question that the article focuses on is where and how exactly do we promote this style of learning.  It is not essential that parents see their involvement in their childs' education being completed by randomly supporting school functions and attending/ participating in "random acts of family involvement".  Though there are various methods proposed, one method approaches that parents not only involve themselves in school functions for their children, but approach school work and other arrayed activities at the home level for their kids.  This seems like the most beneficial method for the students.  It provides them with the well-rounded support system that reflects on their education.  

The law that requires schools to mandate parent involvement also requires compacts to be made specifying exact ways that the parents will be supplementing and actively participating in their child's education. They need to be participants in their child's educational upbringing.  Public education districts in Boston, MA have even elected and created "Parent University" since roughly 2009.  This program provides inspirational activity for parents to be engaged in their child's education.  It also provides necessary childcare for parents while they attend these seminars and "classes" on ways that they can improve their presence and participation in their child's education.  The program has significantly grown over the past three years in attendance and is widely supported by funding provided by the government for family-involvement aspects of education.

The even bigger aspect to this issue is how to draw in parents to be involved if they are not already.  Problems arise with parents who have strict opinions on how curriculum should be shaped and how funding should also be spent.  Though we both know as teachers and parents that their involvement is crucial in student life, it becomes problematic when we cannot focus on a group understanding of why this is outreach is so important. Some districts have even hired professionals to be outreach counselors that mainly focus on bringing in and managing parental involvement in their child’s education.  This is not a problem for just one area of educational concentration.  This affects all teachers, of all subjects, no matter how effective their teaching may be in a classroom.  It is a universal issue that we must design a solution to, in order for students to better gain an understanding of how important the future of education is.

What do you think?  Is it asking too much for parents to be involved in certain ways in their child’s education?  If they are willing to be active participants, how else can we bring them into the fold collectively without disregarding their thoughts and opinions? Read the article and sound off with your thoughts and comments!

(13) Can Technology be a NECESSARY aid for Struggling Readers?

This article by Ted Hasselbring was pretty enlightening in that it allowed me to draw heavy connections between this online module about technology and my READ 411 class that gages on students with literacy issues.  I have occasionally thought that struggling readers would benefit from the allure that technology supplies students with reading difficulties. Technology can help reinvent a text to draw in student attention with vivid screens and designs.  Technology can also help students who struggle with dyslexia by use of interactive applications as well as focus on motivation to read a text as opposed to primary comprehension of what students might be reading. Though I feel comprehension is immensely important, it may also be equally important to try to hone in the reader and then practice over issues with structure and understanding. Students who have reading issues truly range from somewhat generic disinterest to various heavier difficulties such as context confusion, as well as struggles with intonation, syntax, point of view, and inferencing to prior based knowledge.

Though I agree with Hasselbring that technology can be an immense help to struggling readers, I can also agree with the reviewer of this article that believes some of his reasons that allow for technology to be a necessary aid for struggling readers are wishful thinking.  Hasselbring attempts to bring in novel concepts that if technology is incorporated into struggling readers' lessons, they may benefit from the many technological aspects.  These concepts vary but rely heavily on technology being available anytime and anyplace for students.  These are great ideas but can be truly difficult to acknowledge for teachers when students may not have the access at home that they may have while in school.

Hasselbring provides five (5) distinct aspects of technology that can attempt to reinvigorate struggling readers and help them absorb content from what they are reading.  I feel that the most important aspects are reasons # 1 and 5.  The first, technology is adaptive, is beneficial to students with difficulties in reading because for example if a student is reading at a 5th grade level but the student is in 9th grade, there are various applications that can enhance what they are reading so that the student can keep up in some way without them being completely lost and disinterested.  Hasselbring speaks of types of software that assist by changing the context to a more suitable reading level that the student can then comprehend.  The fifth reason, technology is motivating, as mentioned prior is just as important to struggling readers by engaging their thoughts and keeping them focused while they may have difficulty with what they may be reading.  SO many software and programs exist that are able to transform a text and help bridge students troubles with solutions.  With this technological aid, they can easily use applications that change the text to a storybook format or something with illustrations that makes them want to read more intently.

I think Hasselbring brings up some interesting ideas that might prove useful for students who struggle with reading in one way or even those who struggle in many ways. Are these reasons completely necessary in your opinion?  I think they might be both beneficial and somewhat burdensome, but that is primarily based on how distracted students can be when provided with technology that it different. Check the article out when you can.  Are they useful? Which reason do you think is most important?  Sound off with comments!

(12) Do You Think Technology Threatens Education By Supplying More Distractions?

Education Week brought up an interesting commentary this week about how despite technology providing advances in the classroom unlike anything ever has before, is it also promising a new generation of distractions to students who are trying to learn new concepts?  Is the technology integration somewhat hurting students' performance due to the possible distractions outweighing the positive aspects of their aid in learning?

The article, focuses on how over the many years, teachers have had to harness the power of new technologies being introduced into the classroom such as electronic typewriters, educational televisions, etc.  It lightly compares each of these technologies as they were introduced to classrooms in comparison to the personal computer and the uncharted territory that accompanies a computer and interactive web at every possible turn.  The article articulates the both pros and cons about how these new technologies should be aimed toward learning objectives for students. They can have a positive experience is the tools are used as intended without the distractions they also heavily provide. 

The article also examines the harsh reality of these possible distractions.  It says that as educators, "We believe that iBooks, tablets, and other technological tools can be worthwhile if they are seen as a means to an end rather than an end in themselves. For this to happen, they need to be used in a rich, meaningful context. We further believe that this context can be project-based learning. In our experience, these tools are servants—intellectual assistants that enable the learner to go beyond his or her intellectual capabilities. Like any tool—a hammer, for example—they can be used well or misused."

The article also poses the questions as to whether technology as a whole is able to provide students with outlooks separate from what they might be learning.  One strategy listed is Technology-inquiry education (TIE).  TIE is a projected strategy to incorporate technology into learning while also not diminishing students’ capabilities.  TIE focuses primarily on students being well advanced and able to present projects that are creative, new, authentic, and innovative.  This strategy will serve its very purpose by helping students transform the learning they are internalizing while also using the technology in a harnessed and less disruptive format.  TIE hopes to change student learning while still keeping their distractions to the very minimum so that the products that students create can be truly influential and advanced for our future.

Could technology benefit from a modified version of itself that is particularly harnessed where its potential distractions are somewhat contained? I don't have a Facebook account and surely I do not agree with Facebook and all its supposed glory, but I can see how it's incessant presence in technology could distract students from learning.  I think that a modified version would definitely help students keep their minds on track as well as help them perform better.  Where do we begin to modify? What do you think?  Comments?

(11) Interactivity #4 - Pedagogical Uses of Technology

                         Lesson Plan Analysis Map

I chose this particular lesson on idioms because I feel that figurative language is an important part of our speech today that is widely weaved into how we speak but may not be completely understood to others as it is spoken.  This lesson also provides emphasis on how we speak and how that can be conveyed using various texts.  The lesson itself being taught at the 3^rd grade level and its ability to be reiterated again until grade 5, shows it’s heavy importance in our early comprehension of texts as well as readings of all kinds. 

The lesson plan did have some gaps.  I feel that it did engage students with the standards of reading and writing but more technology could have been adapted into the lesson especially considering that some students as young as kindergarten and 1^st grade are already participating in computer literacy classes.  In regards to the specific standards of 3^rd grade English, specifically writing and reading, focuses on being able to clearly identify their rationale and understanding in conveying ideas about a text.  This idea crosses over from texts into anything that these students might read.  By integrating more technology besides Eye on Idioms such as KidPix4 as well as online games like Quia helps to reinforce main ideas for the students with different methods.

The integration of sites such as KidPix4 and Quia to the lesson plan helps in achieving the curriculum goal because it provides students with different interactive modules toward understanding the goals of the lesson.  These technologies apply more visual understanding to the literal language aspect of idioms.  By students gaining online literacy and interacting with one another, they will be able to better comprehend the ideas that the teacher is conveying to them.