My new best friend....Kindle

Isn't she lovely?

I received a Kindle for my graduation present from college and for a a book nerd like me...this is the best gift someone could give. It's nice and sleek and it holds 1,500 books! That's right, let me just repeat that. 1,500 books. Even big ol' fatty fatties like War and Peace can fit into that slim, sleek, little machine. Not only that but you can jump right onto the Kindle Store and get new books downloaded to your Kindle in 3 minutes or less. The best part, of course, is that the books are way cheaper than you could ever get them in print.

Not only can you get books on your kindle but you can also subscribe to get blogs, magazines, and newspapers. This is just a really amazing piece of technology that very few people know about. When I'm reading on my Kindle out in public it's amazing to me that many haven't ever heard of or seen a Kindle before. Soon enough these little machine's will be in the hand of every college student. Think of the money you could save on textbooks!!! Not to mention the room you could save in your backpack.

As any good consumer, there are a few things that do throw me off with the Kindle. For starters, why wouldn't you give a backlight option?! I love to read in the car but the big problem is reading in the car after the sun goes down. I was shocked when I got the Kindle into the car the first time and realized that it didn't have a backlight. I also tried to use the Text to Speech function, but the voice is so digitized and automated with absolutely no inflection. As a reader, I lasted about 2 seconds before I had to turn off the little man trying to read The Scarlet Letter.

Even with the room for improvement, I still get googly eyed when I look at my Kindle. It's like the perfect machine for the book nerd and technology nerd that lives inside of me. To see more information about Kindles and to get one of your own, head on over to Amazon.com!

The challenge of summer reading...

Summer. I welcome you with open arms.

Yet, here I stand at the Rod Library on the UNI campus trying to figure out what books I want to checkout. Of course, like any other good student I cannot stand someone telling me what books I should read. So shouldn't I be relishing this freedom?! This complete and utter liberation from professors shoving over-priced copies of Norton Anothologies into my hands and sending me out the door with assignments to read pages 131-287.

Suddenly I find that I'm unable to think for myself about what I truly want to read...deep down. At night I find myself paging through the anthologies checking out a poem here, a short story there. Where do I start?!?!

I've already read a couple of novels I had laying around the house and never got around to.
Here's my summer reading list as of today. It is an eclectic mix of authors and content but I'd like to believe its a good start and I've enjoyed it so far (the novels I've already finished are in red):

Animal Farm by George Orwell
Birthright by Nora Roberts
The Lovely Bones by Jane
Second Glance by Jodi Picoult*
Sula by Toni Morrison*
Paradise by Toni Morrison
Love by Toni Morrison
American Pastoral by Phillip Roth


*Denotes a highly recommended choice

Geocaching-Not so much fun if you lack a sense of direction

Okay...so it wasn't THAT bad. It did get me out of the classroom! A few days ago we went geocaching. My cohort Mande and I, being English minded, struggle with numbers. So, we were less than successful in finding our caches....which our pictures make blatantly obvious. For those of you who don't know what geocaching is, let me catch you up. Check out this video, made for us by our fellow classmates, its a riot. As stated previously, Mande and I had quite a few issues with our geocaching adventure. For starters, we didn't find anything....which is the whole point.

I think there could be some really fun ways to use this in an English classroom. One obvious way is to use it with the book Treasure Island, or any other treasure seeking book!

Video Games-Friend or Foe?

I'm here to tell you, don't believe everything you hear about video games. As non-gamers, we only see the surface level content of what students are doing these days. They are sitting for hours in front of computer and TV screens, wasting away perfectly good time, rotting their brains with violent images. Not sounding too positive, huh? I'm here to tell you that gaming is NOT ruining today's youth. In fact, it is most likely helping them to take a step above their peers. This past semester I have been doing some really in-depth research on how gaming effects learning and what I've come to learn from all of this reading is that gaming is a positive thing! It's not something we as educators or parents should be scared of. Gaming can teach students some really great skills like social interaction, problem-solving, thinking in terms of cause and effect, and gaming can also help students become more aware and empathetic of various cultures, ethnicities and ideologies.

One author that has been really influential in changing my mind about video games is Marc Prensky. His website provides tons of really great information to parents and teachers about gaming and how it is changing today's youth for the better. Check it out and be ready to open your mind up to the world of video games.

Zotero: For all of you who are reference impaired

I really enjoyed learning about Zotero. As a future English teacher, this is such a great tool to keep your sources organized and to make sure you have all the information to create a work cited page. I also really liked the note taking tool. This can save a ton of time AND paper! Go Green!

My Prezi about Delicious

Here's my very weak attempt at making a Prezi about Delicious. Prezi is a breath of fresh air when it comes to presentation aids!

My Prezi about Delicious

The Great Standards Struggle

As a future educator, there is one thing that is really plaguing me right now. STANDARDS! I've most certainly got a love-hate relationship with them. Let me start by saying that standards are completely necessary and really important for both educators and students. But, let me combat this statement by asking, WHY ARE THERE SOOO MANY?! Would it kill us to have on set of national standards? No wonder all of are high school graduates are at different ability levels. As I am working on a unit for one of my methods courses I am told to align my objectives and lessons to standards. Then the great debate is which ones to choose?! I need to look at the new Iowa Core Curriculum and the NCTE standards and then its probably my duty as well to look at the NETS-S standards as well since I'm an instructional technology minor. What a mess! I'm not really sure that at this point I feel comfortable giving advice to the standard writers across the nation, but I am just venting. I'll end by saying that I'm certainly glad that this many people are concerned about the future of our students and our current education practices. This probably isn't such a bad problem to have. Just a messy one.

Google Sketchup Study Area

It plagued me...but here is my little study area. Nothing fancy but I'm quite proud of it.

Twittering my tweets all over this town...

Ahh...Twitter! What more must I say?


I found this really cool twitter application that can really help students to use Twitter quickly and easily especially in a classroom discussion, project, or any other type of large/small group work! It's called:


GroupTweet


This application allows you to make a Twitter group, so that you can send a direct message to the group. These messages are kept private from the rest of the tweeting world, but the group is quickly and easily managed!


This really opens up the possibilities for Twitter and the classroom. Some students may not be comfortable writing for such a mass public. Also, what if you need to use a student's name to communicate something to other students. This really keeps it private and allows teachers and students to send quick messages to the class privately and easily!


Even individual groups can create different GroupTweets when they are working on a projects or literature circles. As a teacher, you can be involved in every group so that you can keep updated on their project status! This can really hold students more accountable for their own work and their own contributions to the group. Not to mention, its private! I think this can be a powerful tool for teachers, students are out there twittering anyway so why not bring it into the classroom!?

Read-Write-Think...My New Best Friend

So, I was introduced to this website and pretty much fell in love with it. It is honestly such a fun tool for educators, especially in the literacy and language arts fields. They've got a ton of resources for students as well as really great resources for teachers. It's got lesson plans up the wazoo and those lesson plans coordinate with NCTE standards (this website is a branch off of the NCTE site).

I loved this lesson that looked at Satire and compared Jonathan Swift to Dr. Seuss...Brilliant!

From Dr. Seuss to Jonathan Swift: Exploring the History behind the Satire

Funny grammar rules!

As English teachers, it is difficult not to be a stickler about grammar. These rules, provided by the Creative Teaching website (which is cool in and of itself...check it out), are hilarious!

Humorous Grammar Rules

Give these rules as a list for students and when issues with one or more of these rules come up, refer students back to the list for some practice and to get a good laugh! Also, you can use these rules for a rule of the week type of thing. A bulletin board would also be a neat idea.

In Reflection: Lesson on Cinematic Techniques

For my Level II field experience they were working on making "Sweded" movies out of some of their favorite films. (To check out some really fantastic Sweded movies hit up YouTube, the Jurassic Park is one of my favorites as is The Shining, shown here.) For my lesson I chose to introduce the students to some cinematic techniques. I showed a video along with my lesson (I'll hopefully get that linked in sometime soon) and talked about mostly camera angles and how they can be used effectively. They then were to use these techniques while shooting their movies to create a higher quality product.

Overall, the students were really interested in the lesson. Using clips and stills from movies that THEY knew and recognized really made a huge difference in their motivation for learning. I found that the students really got to understand camera angles and how they make the viewer "feel". The downfall of this lesson was most definitely trying to assess the lesson's success or failure. I watched their Sweded videos but it was hard to tell whether they were actually using camera angles for the right reason or if perhaps the camera person was simply holding the camera crooked.

If I were to do this lesson again in the future I would probably utilize storyboards so that the students need to deliberately choose the angle of the camera and the technique they will use in order to create a better product. Those storyboards would definitely give me a more clear sense of whether or not they understood the purpose for the cinematic techniques. I think another fun idea is to send students home with an assignment. Watch tv and movies and come back to school with an example of the use of one of these camera angles, what technique they used, when they used it and why they used it. This would be a more clear assessment for me as a teacher and it would really make the material relevant to the students' everyday lives.

TEWT-A Site for the Fearless Technology Leader

I found this really great website called Teaching English with Technology (TEWT). This website is devoted to teachers who are committed to opening up their minds and classrooms to technology. Of course, technology is no panacea, but its such a helpful tool for educators and let's face it...its the way that the future is heading. This site directly links up technology with the curriculum and offers some really great ideas for integrating technology seamlessly into the classroom and adapting it to meet your objectives.

Useful stuff: The resource guides for a variety of commonly taught books, a special resource page for poetry and poets, a newsletter!, opportunities for professional development.

Technology in the Language Arts Classroom...Who'd have thunk it.

I chose my theme for this blog to be the incorporation of technology into the Language Arts classroom. So often, teachers and professors of English don't recognize the possibilities that technology can bring! No, this does not mean that I'm getting renouncing books...but I am arguing that there is a better way to teach English and that's through the help of technology.

I have been exploring some blogs concerning Language Arts and teaching and here are a few that I enjoyed and thought worth mentioning:

The English Teacher Blog

This blog's writer is focusing on sending out to English teacher's useful information. She has funny stories, new book releases updates, and a variety of other fun stuff for English teachers to know about. The website also provides information on new seminars and webinars for English teachers to attend. I selected this blog because it was from an English teacher's point of view and it really shows how effective collaboration can be. The comments tool is really effective in this one and it creates for an online community of people with a common purpose, which is really exciting.

Teaching with Technology

This blog is different from the previous blog because it focuses specifically on the integration of technology into the classroom. It provides information on new fun gadgets that teachers can explore to determine if they should use them in their classroom. As teachers, there is no possible way to keep up on the new technology or new methods that are pouring out at us, so blogs like this one give us a chance to catch up quickly. The goal of this blog really seems to be giving teachers ideas about technology integration and introducing new technologies. The blog features lots of videos, screen captures and links to create a much more interactive blog.


In the end, what I'm looking for is a combination of these two items. I want to look into new ways to include technology in the English classroom.