Bolg Reflection for Medi 560

My semester began as a whirlwind of activity. I started a job (after coming out of retirement for 8 yrs) and graduate school all in the same month-Geeze Louise! I had held off my decision to go back to work until I was secure that my daughters would not be greatly affected by my transition to working mom.Also I am a mother of three little girls and have never left them in other people care. I was unsure how consumed I would become with teaching again, how would my working and going to school affect my family, could I possible juggle it all? My biggest issue was my need to be a perfectionist-perfect mom, perfect teacher, perfect student and perfect wife, perfect daughter etc-its exhausting. I have since let some small stuff go-I know I can't be perfect but I am comfortable with doing the best I can when the situation calls for it. I went back to work with so much enthusiasm and couldn't believe how much education has changed in 8 years. I also started graduate school, something that I wanted to do for so long, with the same kind of vigor. This course was so interesting and exciting for me. I have learned so much in the course of one semester. I am a self proclaimed tech freak so when we were introduced to Second Life, I must confess I couldn't get enough of it. I consider myself to be quiet good at it too. My journey on Second life has open so many new teaching aspects that I once objected to. I hope to see Second life mainstreamed into elementary schools. Handles correctly the benefits to brooded student learning are endless. I hope I don't have to give up my SL persona or my dorm room? With this course I did have to make a conserted effort to post blog and respond I actually added it to my agenda, lol.

Blogging, Wiki's and Video Games I must confess that before this course my knowledge on blogging, Wiki's was null! Goodness gracious-I had never heard of this stuff or maybe it is not that I was not correctly exposed to it. I had seen it in a few websites "check out our blog" but never understood it. Well I am a huge blogger now. I love to write,obviously, just randomly nothing formal-it is so cool. My students also think I am cool. They don;t fully understand what blogging is but I am trying to get my medieval school board to allow me to sign-up and start a blog forum for my student, staff and parents. I can think of a better way to communicate so efficiently with everyone. I think of the learning, collaborating and sharing aspects and it blows my mind! Well everyone knew about my hesitation with regard to video games. I didn't like them at all. Well since I have been exposed to Second Life, Web kins and the WII, I am starting to change my way of thinking-now I am am avid player and participator and fan!

Learning Spaces

I am a firm believer in learning spaces can occur anytime and anywhere. This transcends through the method I use to teach. I find it now a little harder to keep my students attention unless I incorporate the tools that they love and find innovative. An example I used this week was teaching dictionary skills, apparently a real snozzer for the first 10 minutes of the class when I explained to the students that when I went to school there was not inventive spelling we had to use print dictionaries. The were astonished that we didn't have computers in class or even in a lab. I explained to them that instead of the computer lab we had Home Ec.-"huh?" was what proceeded that statement. To this very day I still know how to make a mean eggs if a frame!(lol)thank you Mrs. Sommermeyer :). Well the rest of my lesson went online to a really cool dictionary game website , Word Central http://www.wordcentral.com/ ,that I linked to my Web page and the kids went wild trying to see who received the most points buy the end of class. I find that this methodology works best for my students now it allows them to learn at different paces and unlock various levels on their own, no one gets left behind because everyone takes from their lessons what they are able too. Second life I find astonishing just the other day I went to Paris and spoke with a few people, I have also been to Colombia, Spain , United Kingdom,Egypt, and Malaysia and have exchanged information with various people from all walks of life. As a society we have crossed oceans with regards to technologies and educational resources I am so excited to see what the future has to offer my children and future grandchildren. Picture on top of of my SL Learning Apace Dorm room I even have a Kitty called Pickles, my daughters named him

Identity Play

As an educator I can defiantly see the pros to what Gee is referring to as identity play unfortunately as a realist I can see the cons too. Children are so much more computer savvy that we all were at their age. Technology is immersing itself in all aspects of our lives through leaps and bounds- not only yearly, I believe daily! Everyday we are alerted to a new service, a new website etc... it is amazing. I love anything to do with technology and since the kids seem so connected to this I use it as a frequent resource in my classroom, plus they never complain when I have them do there assignment on the computer! I enjoy when I see the children working elaborately finding information using such a great vehicle. So much of the identity role I see in the library take on the form of a collaborative group dynamic. I also find that the kids learn more through this venue because they are experiencing, in a way that is different from the stereotypical student (apple for the teacher, black marble notebooks, pencil cases etc). I also allow them to actively participate, with guidance, in their own learning process by sharing information and even preparing some question on test, they think its cool and love the idea so. So after reading this chapter I guess my kids have also taken the Identity of a teacher. I will try anything to get my students to connect with education - cool game links on websites, podcast, vodcast etc... but sadly the ones that I flocking to my suggested websites are definitely the minority. Many of my student love to play the more violent games, honestly it scares me to think that some of my students are identify with their alter-ego persona's after hearing the game they are passionate about to. It believe it had much to do with what they are identifying with at home, which in the majority of the cases is not good :(.

I also wonder, where and if when will it cross the line. I am not trying to play devil's advocate, well I guess I am, but can our children (our own and our students) be bombarded by these advances in technology that they might start to separate from reality? Especially in a time where school are plagued with some many children with special needs, I can see many of the benefits, I can also see children loosing themselves in some of these games.

I am amazed at how SL creatively showed me a new venue to create my own new identity, I loose myself even if just for a few minutes a day via my SL persona she has been to Egypt, Paris, England etc. My how technology has changed!

I think my daughters would laugh at me if I ever showed them how I rocked when I played ATARI-Tennis, and centipede, lol.

New Literacies

New Literaciesat the Media Center in HLB. Very cool that this was this weeks post-you see I recently started a new position as a librarian for a Public School in an Abbott District. I gave the children a web presentation on the new HLB Media center website. I was so excited and a bit nervous. I started off with asking the children a series of questions. How many have a computer? How many have a close family member who have a computer? and Lastly How many students have visited the town's public library? I was shocked that a little less that half of the student didn't know where it was. Well I explained that I was in contact with the people at the library and they sent me information such as schedules programs offered for kids and adults. Also let them know that they have 25 computers for students use in the Children's Dept. They were shocked-they had no idea. Them I proceeded to explain to them how to access the districts website and my Media center page. They were amazed at how much "Cool" stuff was literally right at their finger tips. I was so happy that they were so excited. I have also teamed up with a few grades that were working on research papers and posted a lot of links that they could use for their research. I suggested that the Computer teacher could be asked for help on this and I was given an immediate "No, she would never cooperate" . Stunned I replied "why don't we all want the same goal, have the children enjoy and be successful with their projects?" I walked away to my sanctuary, the library and wondered why this reaction? Surprisingly in my new district the mind set is a bit "old school" each teacher does their own "thing" has their own mind set and collaboration is not initiated. I think we definatley need to incorporate various forms of technology into our classrooms . Has anyone tried "tappedin"?

WII goes my MII

Regarding my Wii challenge I have to report that I went online and googles Wii suggestions. I was getting a bit frustrated because my Mii didn't have too many "unlocked bonus games" . The consistent answer was spend more time to get more credits. This is probably where I got wrong I am consumed with entertaining my girls and tending to my unending loads of laundry to wash, dry and fold that I do a few minutes on the Wii and my daughters log me off and take my control. :( I did unlock one more Yoga pose which was nice! Sunday I have implemented a Wii marathon day. Wish me luck!

Gee-what did you think?

Interesting topic- again remember your are blooging with the catholic school girl who learned her times table with the rap of a wooded ruler-not pleasantso bear with me. I am from the new way of thinking and teaching 'what ever works" as long as they are willing to learning and show an interest I will search to the ends of the Earth to find a way to make it fun as well as educational. Semiotic Domains is my cup of tea. Children, me included, learn in all ways everyday with every experience so why should video games be any different. When my twins were 4 and being introduced to math I was the first one to whip-out the counters, cherrios, pennies, Popsicle sticks, if it could be counted it was nearby. I even made magic counting wands for the little ones that "magically" helped them with the answer. They could count with their wand ant the drop of a hat but lose the wands in school and like deer in headlights they lost their ability to add. Now I am not talking calculus here. I am talking simple 5 + 3=? Well I introduced math drills on work sheets and mathcafe.com. That year Santa left a leapfrog video system with a plethora of spelling, math, and reading games for Christmas, he took the wands for the elves. Like a charm, unbelievable my daughters received constant reinforcement from various media that subconsciously they became stronger in their once weekend subject. If your reading this bolg I am sure you remember a few episodes of School House Rock-I even sing some of the songs to myself to myself when I am trying to find parts of speech for a class and I am caught off guard." quite interesting a nouns a person place or thing..." So I do think that learning if done correctly can be achieved through all types of media.

Experience with the WII

After much persuading from my daughters (7,7, & 5) "Mommy got a little crazy with the WII fit!" After a long weekend home with my family I geared up to a video game marathon. My daughters taught me how to set up my MII. To my horror my MII is considered overweight and appears slightly "chubbier" than the other MII's. Oh well I had to get past the fact that computers only tell the truth. Well I stepped on the WII Fit Board and proceeded to start my course of Balance games, Aerobic challenges, Strength Training and Yoga challenges. I must save that I lost tract of time with my girls and my husband cheering me on. It was a lot of fun and I was amazed at how my daughters knew what objectives had to be met before you unlock a new game, pose etc. I have a new appreciation for this sort of entertainment it captivated me. I also unlocked 4 new Yoga posed have graduated to advance step and a received new balance exercises. This is something that people of all ages can enjoy! I admit that I am only a "Calorie Roaster" Beginner/advance but will not stop until I have reached "Calorie Incinerator"

My daughter also have started a new WII game and I have just been observing them Disney Princess Adventures. I was shocked at how quickly they met all the objectives and finished the game in 3 days. They collaborated when they could move on to finish a Princesses objective and they looked to find the "Z" to help them reach their goal. This game was interesting for young girls. It is set up with the Five Major Disney Princesses: Snow White, Ariel, Cinderella, Jasmine and Bell from Beauty and the Beast ( she was a bonus only to be played after all the princesses chapters were unlocked). When I created my Princesses (alter ego) I had to help all the Princesses defeat the "BOG's". At the beginning it was entertaining but then I just wanted to get all my jewels and leave this enchanted world to the birds! Anyone older that 10 12 would probably find this very BORING!