Internet Resources

I joined the National Council for Teachers of English back in the first semester of school and I like it. It is filled with all types of information that is useful for a language arts teacher. It is a fairly easy to use web site that offers access to books, research, lesson plans and useful ideas. NCTE has research-based resources for English teachers that can be very helpful for teachers of Language Arts. This makes it a fruitful web site that helps me with student learning and achievement. The site offers an option where you can fill out information online and request consultation. I’m not sure exactly how this works, but I know it’s available and I’m sure to use it at some point in my career. I think that these kind of online resources are especially important for all of us in Alaska because of our physical separation from the rest of the country, good sites like this one offer access to issues and new ideas that affect the Language Arts world in education. And of course this site has easy access to very usable lesson plans. This is a very high quality resource.

I have also been using the Teacher Vision web site. This is a nice general site that has something for all teachers. Since I have been teaching a block History/ English class, I can go to Teacher Vision and find lesson plan ideas as well as strategies and general teaching plan ideas. I have found a lot of good lesson plan ideas. Many web sites that deal with teachers and teaching have a lot of unusable plans and ideas, at least for me, but this one has things that are useful and workable in the class room. I know because I have used some of them. Of course I usually just pick out what I think I can use, and leave the rest, like right now I am looking at some sections of a blues lesson plan that I can use as part of my to Kill A Mockingbird unit. I haven’t joined Teacher Vision yet, but I have been able to access a lot of information without joining. With a membership fee of about forty dollars a year, I might wait until I get a job.

Since History is the larger section of what I have been teaching, I have also been using the Digital History website. I like this site because it has loads of links. There are links to PBS as well the National Archives. The links are substantial and worthwhile; this site is mostly links, which I like because it takes you to what you are specifically looking for instead of having to search a specific item on a website. It also has a myriad of primary source documents which is invaluable for teaching History. There is a problem though; many of the links do not link to anything, which can be quite disappointing. But I really enjoy browsing around on this site. It’s fun to read Red Horse’s version of the Battle of Little Bighorn, or look at Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. The site also has time lines to all different periods in history. I find these very helpful for students to get an idea of place in time, as well as historical chronology. I have used these by accessing them on my classroom computer, which is connected to an overhead projector, and then I just put it up on the big screen and go over with students. I usually have them copy it and keep it for a reference.

Assistive Technologies

This could be the first article in the Educational Leadership magazine where I only have good things to say. The idea of being able to use technology that is very specific to helping students with learning disabilities is a fantastic one. I am enthusiastically for anything that can help students develop grade level reading and writing skills.

• The ultimate beauty of this technology is that many students can read grade level text without a teacher
• It gives students the wonderful feeling of independent accomplishment

Read & Write Gold sounds like some good software with the text to speech that students can listen to at their own pace. The writing software that instantaneously gives students a choice of words that they may be trying to use, can only be positive because the student still has to figure out what the correct word would be. The software does not do all of the thinking for the student.

Believe it or not Sitka High has some type of related technology. I have several students who use it, but I don’t know exactly what it is, and I would guess that there are a lot of teachers that don’t know about it. I am now feeling rather ridiculous not having experienced it with one of my students. I will do this soon.

The Over Dominance of Computers

I have a small problem with the analogies at the beginning of this article that are not analogous to the author’s argument. Comparing youthful computer use to alcohol use or driving a car as a youth is too much of a stretch. This sort of thing makes me leery as to how much hyperbole I’m going to have to swallow, and it makes me mentally discount any statement that is vague or is not backed up by reasonable studies or statistics.

His suggestion that since we are teaching computer literacy to students we are not teaching certain values like, “commitment, loyalty and tradition” is an argument that could be made for just about any subject.

However, just because his argument process is weak, it doesn’t mean that the essence of what he is saying is wrong. The article has a solid core of truth; we don’t need to be pushing major computer literacy on young children and there are more important things to be teaching.

The main ideas that can be lost in this rambling article are:

• Students still need to be prepared for the world of technology
• The authentic world, and worldly values, are critical parts of student growth
• Parents and teachers need to recognize and secure a balance between both worlds

short fiction

I will have students write a work of short fiction using the story map as a guide, once they start writing the actual story they must stay very close to the original story map.The reason is that beginning writers of short fiction usually have problems with randomly straying from the main point.The other main aspect of this is that the core of the story should be at least loosely based on some real experience, and then fiction can be added on, like frosting and colorful little burning candles on a birthday cake.
I decided to go with just one image on this video because I thought it would go along with the idea of singleness of effect, which is one of the main points of this writing lesson along with staying focused on the core of the story. I chose one image
that I thought generally expressed the idea. This is not at all necessary, in fact I originally had a whole group of images picked out to use, but then decided to do it this way simply to emphasize the point.

The lesson for creative writing students is to use the story map as the core and then once the core is established the writer can expand using:

• dialogue
• description
• character development

But not:
• additional characters
• extra plot development

The story I posted on Teacher Tube follows these rules, it has a core of real experience and then just story telling all around the core. I think that using movie maker with its time limit along with a story map will be an excellent tool for short fiction and non -fiction writers. It really works by forcing a writer to stay within the story.
You can find my story example by going to teacher tube.




A rubric for the digital story can be found at
Google Docs

story map

This project is going to be about students learning how to take something from their life experiences and use it as the core for a piece of fiction. Staying with the general idea that you should write what you know. It will be okay,in fact necessary to add fiction to this core of fact. One of the biggest problems all writers and especially novice writers have with short fiction is keeping the story line focused. Since this is a piece of short fiction it is critical for writers to keep focused on the main story details. The story map will work to help develop plot and keep writers focused on a central idea. My story map takes an actual experience I had, and then quickly expands into fiction. This story map will be used an example for students on how to do this, as well as showing students some basic elements of short fiction.

Philosophy of Education Movie Maker and Me

I would have to agree that the movie maker is a bit clunky. I would think that having another channel to record would be a simple thing, and it probably is a simple thing, they just want you to buy it, and I guess that’s fair enough. So I ended up buying a twelve dollar microphone for my laptop and I played my i tunes on my computer, and then held the mic up to the speakers for a few seconds and then pulled it away and started talking, then when I was finished talking I put the mic back by the speakers again to finish.I did this so I could have music in the back ground while I was talking. This all sounds pretty simple, but it took a lot of tries to get it even close to right. And then when I finally got one that was at least okay, I listened to it, and noticed that I read my philosophy wrong. The vocals are a little soft too, but no matter what I did I kept getting those popping "P's", so I had to keep the vocals down, probably should have spent more on a microphone, the one I borrowed from Sitka High was even worse than the one I bought.
I published it anyway because I figured at this point in time everybody’s eyes glaze over and their minds go in a fog when they hear the words, “philosophy of education". But actually I had a lot of fun doing this,but I think it would have been more fun on a Mac.
So if you want to take look it's on teacher tube.

TOOLS FOR THE MIND

Tools for the Mind

There is a lot of validity to what the author of this article is saying. For example the idea that most of the computer use by students is limited to research based projects. There is definitely an abundance of going to the computer lab, and just finding some information on something, and using Word to write about it. And then, of course, there is plenty cutting and pasting going on too. I’m coming from a language arts base so there will always be more research type computer use in language arts.
The author is right on about this lower level thinking process that is going on with computer use, and I think she is right in saying that we need to move beyond that to developing some high order processes with computer use. But there are some big steps to take to get there.

Reference Points:
• It’s true that most computer use in schools requires only lower order thinking.
• Higher level activities for computer use will take much more time and energy than the lower order activities.
• Critics should start offering solutions instead of just pointing to our panoply of problems.


I think this article would have greater impact if the author would give us more of the “how to,” instead of “where to.” She has astutely recognized the problem, but it would be nice to see some more details on how to get where we need to be. The really tough part is mentioned, but somewhat brushed aside. The author mentions that the higher order tools are not as user friendly, and they are time intensive to use and to learn, and this is a major factor contributing to the stuck in the muck of the lower order thinking levels with computers. In the end, I have to completely agree that it’s time for more analytic skills to be brought into the computer room. I guess I just didn’t want somebody to remind me that there is even more work to do.