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.