Sunday, June 14, 2009
Homework; To Give or Not To Give
I have been giving a great deal of thought to homework lately. I have now been teaching a long time and do not see any academic advantage to giving homework. When you think about it, the 'smart' kids or 'high-achievers' are going to finish their work before leaving the classroom (or at lunch!). On the other hand, the students who habitually do not do their homework, never will. Does it do either them or me good to keep them from socialising to complete it? I think it punishes me more. Therefore, I think that next year, I am going to make a conscious effort not to give much homework. Perhaps, if I create really meaningful assignments, it will miraculously appear in my inbox anyways! Besides, I don't think the parents know how to do it anymore!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
The Countdown Begins
I can't believe we only have 11 days of teaching left, if you can actually call it that! In those 11 days, one is activity day, one we're swimming at Spani Pool, one I'm taking the band and choirs to perform at Granville Island, one is talent show and one is the grade 8 leaving ceremony. Once again, this year has gone fast. Why is it that I never get done what I want to? There's so many things left to do. Oh, well; there's always next year.
That leads us into summer plans. I think some much needed rest will be happening at the cabin. It will be nice to sit on the deck or the dock (just change a vowel!) and watch the sun set. Oh; but wait! I think I need to work on SFU stuff while I'm there. Oh well; at least there's no internet! That leads me into August which might as well be September since I'm back to school for two weeks. The most difficult task of the summer will be keeping the teenager occupied and out of trouble. Luckily I have family to help.
So, next time I blog, hopefully it'll be about something mundane like sleeping instead of work!
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Life in Festival Land
I know I haven't posted for awhile, but.....I've been busy. For the first time, I entered my performing groups in the Kiwanis Music Festival. I was very proud of their performances. My concert choir came home with a silver and my band with a bronze. The clinics that were given to the groups were very informative. However, the clinicians really didn't say anything that I hadn't already been harping at them about. I know that and the kids know that. Hopefully, hearing it from someone else (at a hefty price), will hit home. It will be interesting to see.
It was interesting to see and hear the types of groups entered in the festival. A number of my students remarked that everyone seemed to be from private schools. Hmmm...wonder what's going on here. In fact, after a conversation with one of the band clinicians, it came out that there were only two public school bands performing and go figure: both from Coquitlam. As far as the choirs go, there were only a handful of public schools competing out of a weeks worth of performances. Makes you think: what is happening to our public music system? Are we going the way of the dinosaur? I find it intriguing as I know there are excellent music programs in our district, yet so few take these opportunities. Yes, the festivals cost money. Yes, the preparation takes time. However, the benefits to the students far exceed the the cons. I think our students need to have the bar placed high for them. They need to know the discipline of preparing for such an event. I think that our music programs in the public system have become a little bit mickey-mouse (sorry to those of you in California!). Maybe that's why parents are removing their kids at alarming rates from our system and putting them in the private system. I definitely think that that's a scary way to go. Is all society moving to an elitist system? As public educators, we better pull up our socks and get out there. Our kids deserve these opportunities. Our kids are just as good or better then these have all institutions. We just need to give them a nudge.
It was interesting to see and hear the types of groups entered in the festival. A number of my students remarked that everyone seemed to be from private schools. Hmmm...wonder what's going on here. In fact, after a conversation with one of the band clinicians, it came out that there were only two public school bands performing and go figure: both from Coquitlam. As far as the choirs go, there were only a handful of public schools competing out of a weeks worth of performances. Makes you think: what is happening to our public music system? Are we going the way of the dinosaur? I find it intriguing as I know there are excellent music programs in our district, yet so few take these opportunities. Yes, the festivals cost money. Yes, the preparation takes time. However, the benefits to the students far exceed the the cons. I think our students need to have the bar placed high for them. They need to know the discipline of preparing for such an event. I think that our music programs in the public system have become a little bit mickey-mouse (sorry to those of you in California!). Maybe that's why parents are removing their kids at alarming rates from our system and putting them in the private system. I definitely think that that's a scary way to go. Is all society moving to an elitist system? As public educators, we better pull up our socks and get out there. Our kids deserve these opportunities. Our kids are just as good or better then these have all institutions. We just need to give them a nudge.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Joys of Having a Student Teacher!
For the first time in 20 years, (yes, I've been teaching that long), I have a student teacher from UBC. It's probably been one of the best things I've ever decided to do.
Her name is Liz Purdy and I am one lucky teacher. She is bright and witty and loves kids. What more could I want? She's very capable and works so very hard. I hope she's proud of what she's accomplished because she should be.
On a selfish note, I don't know how I ever got everything done at this time of the year. I'm in the middle of doing articulation with all our elementary schools as well as many concerts. Without Liz, I think I would be a basket case! (I know; don't respond to that!)
Needless to say, I think I'll be getting another one next year!
Her name is Liz Purdy and I am one lucky teacher. She is bright and witty and loves kids. What more could I want? She's very capable and works so very hard. I hope she's proud of what she's accomplished because she should be.
On a selfish note, I don't know how I ever got everything done at this time of the year. I'm in the middle of doing articulation with all our elementary schools as well as many concerts. Without Liz, I think I would be a basket case! (I know; don't respond to that!)
Needless to say, I think I'll be getting another one next year!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Don't believe what you read!
Well, my last blog was very interesting. Little Miss Muffet decided that she was going to become a 'ghost writer'. However, all she wrote about was herself! We had a lot of laughs while she was writing it. I actually do enjoy having her around. Every age brings something interesting, that's for sure!
On another note, I've been busy with my university stuff again. I've purchased the program 'Adobe Premier Elements 7' and am hoping to use it for my e-portfolio. It is a very glorified digital story with all the bells and whistles. I think I'll enjoy working with it, although I have to be very creative about it!
I've been working a lot with digital stories lately. I absolutely love Photostory 3 and have been using it to make tutorials. You can check out my latest here:
http://vimeo.com/4205648?pg=transcoded_embed&sec=4205648
Hopefully, it will work!
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Cassie in Coquitlam!
Well, another Easter is done and I'm still learning! Thanks to my amazing talented daughter. She sure is a smart teenager! Everyone just wishes they had a daughter as smart as her ! I'm enjoying her knowledge lately. especially since she got me reading Twilight. It's really good. We actually went and found the second Twilight movie set together in Poco. She was surprised when she saw a horse in Coquitlam! She also attempted to jump out of a moving vehicle when she found a cute security guard! I yelled "DUCK AND COVER" we drove by the security guards in a circle about 4 times ! Man was that embarassing! That native one was cute! As a matter of fact, my daughter is getting an A in her english class and her teacher looooves her! I'm so proud of my lovely daughter. She deserves the world thats for sure.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Assignment for SFU - I actually learned something!
Lesson Make-Over - LTT - March 25, 2009
When given this assignment, I really had to think about how and most importantly, why I would change an assignment. To me, this was a difficult task as in our school, it is difficult to have access to technology, period. We have three labs in the school. There is one in the library which is difficult to get into. Then we have the main computer lab where you're lucky if you have 10 computers that work. Finally, we have the tech-ed lab. Good luck getting in there as the tech-ed teacher always has it booked. Therefore, I decided to make use of my virtual classroom site. This has been one of my main goals for the first term of LTT. I have worked really hard and played really hard trying to get this set-up. If I was able to post this assignment on the site, my students would have to begin to explore it. As of that time, there were only a handful of students who had requested access to the site. This, to me, meant that I was not utilizing it very well. The kids just looked at it as a homework site. I posted a wiki on there and began to ask questions. Once I decided to post my assignment on-line, the kids really started to use the site.
I have a very rambunctious group of grade 6's who are very hard to motivate. In the fall, we did the novel Holes. I wanted to look at the character of Stanley in our final study. We spent a lot of time discussing his philosophy and how he grew as a character throughout the book. We talked about the social aspect of his character and how he fit in with all the other characters. I had the students complete posters to show their work. The grade 7's did an outstanding job. However, the grade 6's didn't get it. They had a really hard time putting together a proper presentation and were unable to think in terms of the character. We had been working on writing in first person, so I decided to do another character study just for the grade 6's. Before Spring Break, we had completed a lit kit on bullying. This was a perfect opportunity to play around with an on-line assignment.
The first thing I did was to do some research on the web as to appropriate sites the students would be able to access. I decided on Read/Write/Think. I really liked this site as it was extremely clear with it's instructions which was perfect for individual work at home. Once I decided on the assignment, I realized that I was going to have to do some sort of tutorial for the kids to remember instructions with. I decided to use Jing for this. I also used Jing to freeze a page on the web that I had found to use as a reference for thinking about characters in first person.
This is the page:
http://screencast.com/t/VE4jIJBz
Here's the Jing tutorial I did so the grade 6's would remember what they were supposed to do:
http://www.screencast.com/users/Carlan/folders/Jing/media/f7d51dbd-c3b5-41b7-bad7-4ae19751663e
The next task was to paste the link to the character profile I wanted the grade 6's to complete. I thought that this was an excellent assignment to begin an individual on-line assignment with.
Here's the link:
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/profile/
My next step was to take the students to the library lab to show them the assignment (it was actually available that day...also, the teacher/librarian wanted to see how I used Jing). I went through the assignment. Their initial reaction was very positive. They were very excited about working on their own on-line. Then they realized that there was no way they were going to remember everything. That's when I showed the Jing tutorial. After they finished laughing because I sounded like a stewardess, they loved it. I had pretty much the whole class send for requests for access to my site that evening. It was probably the first homework assignment everyone got in on time.
I enjoyed putting this together, simply for the fact that I actually could. If you had asked me in September to do this, there's no way I would have been able to. I am very excited at what I've learned in this short time and can't wait to learn more.
Thanks!
When given this assignment, I really had to think about how and most importantly, why I would change an assignment. To me, this was a difficult task as in our school, it is difficult to have access to technology, period. We have three labs in the school. There is one in the library which is difficult to get into. Then we have the main computer lab where you're lucky if you have 10 computers that work. Finally, we have the tech-ed lab. Good luck getting in there as the tech-ed teacher always has it booked. Therefore, I decided to make use of my virtual classroom site. This has been one of my main goals for the first term of LTT. I have worked really hard and played really hard trying to get this set-up. If I was able to post this assignment on the site, my students would have to begin to explore it. As of that time, there were only a handful of students who had requested access to the site. This, to me, meant that I was not utilizing it very well. The kids just looked at it as a homework site. I posted a wiki on there and began to ask questions. Once I decided to post my assignment on-line, the kids really started to use the site.
I have a very rambunctious group of grade 6's who are very hard to motivate. In the fall, we did the novel Holes. I wanted to look at the character of Stanley in our final study. We spent a lot of time discussing his philosophy and how he grew as a character throughout the book. We talked about the social aspect of his character and how he fit in with all the other characters. I had the students complete posters to show their work. The grade 7's did an outstanding job. However, the grade 6's didn't get it. They had a really hard time putting together a proper presentation and were unable to think in terms of the character. We had been working on writing in first person, so I decided to do another character study just for the grade 6's. Before Spring Break, we had completed a lit kit on bullying. This was a perfect opportunity to play around with an on-line assignment.
The first thing I did was to do some research on the web as to appropriate sites the students would be able to access. I decided on Read/Write/Think. I really liked this site as it was extremely clear with it's instructions which was perfect for individual work at home. Once I decided on the assignment, I realized that I was going to have to do some sort of tutorial for the kids to remember instructions with. I decided to use Jing for this. I also used Jing to freeze a page on the web that I had found to use as a reference for thinking about characters in first person.
This is the page:
http://screencast.com/t/VE4jIJBz
Here's the Jing tutorial I did so the grade 6's would remember what they were supposed to do:
http://www.screencast.com/users/Carlan/folders/Jing/media/f7d51dbd-c3b5-41b7-bad7-4ae19751663e
The next task was to paste the link to the character profile I wanted the grade 6's to complete. I thought that this was an excellent assignment to begin an individual on-line assignment with.
Here's the link:
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/profile/
My next step was to take the students to the library lab to show them the assignment (it was actually available that day...also, the teacher/librarian wanted to see how I used Jing). I went through the assignment. Their initial reaction was very positive. They were very excited about working on their own on-line. Then they realized that there was no way they were going to remember everything. That's when I showed the Jing tutorial. After they finished laughing because I sounded like a stewardess, they loved it. I had pretty much the whole class send for requests for access to my site that evening. It was probably the first homework assignment everyone got in on time.
I enjoyed putting this together, simply for the fact that I actually could. If you had asked me in September to do this, there's no way I would have been able to. I am very excited at what I've learned in this short time and can't wait to learn more.
Thanks!
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