by Tracy Rosen, teaching & consulting since 1996, blogging about it here since 2007. All views are my own and you should take them with a grain of salt, I do.
In writing a comment for Mr Gonzalez’s post about his plans to use iPads in Science, I did a little google search on iPad’s wifi issues because, to be honest, I don’t trust iPad’s network connection enough yet to use it in a classroom.
I was surprised to see, at the bottom of the first search page a link written by someone from my professional learning community – Chris Parsons.
At first I thought, Cool! Look, it’s Chris! Then I noticed the fine print by the article title:
Beta – My Social Circle – My Social Content.
connected via twitter.com
Has anyone else noticed this in their google searches?
I’m going back and forth from this is cool, to this is creepy.
On the same note, Google street view has a view of the front of my parents’ house, with my mom in it. She’s standing in their garage. Again, cool? creepy?
I am taking a course this summer, a 27 day intensive (did I mention intensive?) course on the teaching of French as a 2nd Language. Each week we have about 12 assignments to complete and reflect on and since it takes place entirely online, the work is mainly in the form of written response. I haven’t written so much in French in a very long time. I received this comment from our instructor yesterday:
(Your arguments are convincing and well articulated. You made me laugh with your beautiful French. Thanks!)
I’m not sure if the ‘beau francais’ part is tinged with a bit of sarcasm or not since at times I felt I was pulling vocabulary and turns of phrases out of my nether regions but at least she was smiling while she read it :) One thing that’s certain, the more I write the better I feel about writing in French. My writing seems to be more automatic now. I check my writing – in particular for things like gender and some aspects of verb usage (do I conjugate a certain verb with etre or avoir?) – with firefox’s French spellcheck**, translation tools, and by merely conducting a search for similar phrases in google. I am finding that more often than not I am ok and so I am starting to trust my writing more and doing those checks less often, which also helps to speed up the writing process. What helps IMMENSELY is that the focus is on the content and no one mentions anyone’s errors – a fine example of acquisition theory, that real learning happens through authentic learning situations with meaningful input and not through direct instruction in grammar.
(Find an image online that describes your experiences with and thoughts about classroom management. Post your image in the forum and explain what this image signifes for you.)
SO – I am going to go with a voicethread for this one!
Actually, I’ll be cheating a bit since it isn’t a new image but I commented on an image I have already used to talk about classroom management – the Timmy and Mr Whiskers comic. My new comment is the last one (or, if someone adds a comment, the 2nd of my comments) and it is in French. Do you think I should post a translation in English? (a few minutes later…) Ok, I just did! So, where you see my mug twice in a row, the first is my comment in French and the 2nd in English. Do you have any thoughts on classroom management? Any thoughts on particular challenges for management in certain courses or subject areas? Add to the conversation!
**(re: using spellcheck) which, like I tell my students, I need to be careful with. I used the word ‘atteint’ for ‘attente’ all day yesterday. The word I wanted means ‘expectations’ but the word I chose could mean many things, including ‘suffering from’ :) though, to be fair with myself, we can say ‘qu’on a atteint l’objectif’ for ‘we have met the objective’, so perhaps my error is understandable. French can be very confusing at times!
Image licensed from CagleCartoons.com copyright Daryl Cagle, All Rights Reserved.
I’ve been seeing this image more and more lately, each time I smirk, shake my head. It provokes a number of thoughts:
beginning with, defensively….
Why is it ok to yell at teachers?
Why blame the teacher for a student’s failure?
How/when did this accountability transition happen?
but soon morphing into…
Are the parents/student upset because they were surprised?
If so, do you blame them?
I like that teachers are more approachable now, though I think the teacher has a responsibility to manage communication more effectively so that we don’t get a blast in the face from angry parents.
Student Engagement (powerpoint) by Amy Reschly, Ph.D. & James Appleton, Ph.D.
from the presentation:
Engagement is the primary theoretical model for understanding dropout and is, quite frankly, the bottom line in interventions to promote school completion.
Student engagement: paradigm change or political expediency? by Christine Hardy, Learning and Teaching Coordinator for the School of Art and Design Nottingham Trent University and Colin Bryson, Director of the Combined Honours Centre, Newcastle University
from the article:
Students need to be sufficiently engaged with higher education and learning to achieve their potential and gain from participation. Therefore student engagement is one of the most important concepts to emerge in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Strengthening Student Engagement by Dr. Richard D. Jones, Author and Senior Consultant, International Center for Leadership in Education, November 2008
And, really, I can go on. Some of you know how much I love to do research! But I’m hoping for you to help out here. What proof do you have that engagement improves learning? What do you base that proof on?
