Receptionist For A Day

My action research project is very time consuming.  I find myself exhausted after just completing one activity.  The last activity I did was last May.  My activity consisted of being a receptionist for a day.  In this activity, I found that you have to be a multi-tasked and very organized individual.  Receptionist, in my opinion is the backbone of the school operations.  They are first in line when greeting visitors. They monitor hallways, answer phones, take messages, arrange mailing packages, set up conference call, set up appointments, counsel students when in trouble, counsel parents when they are angry at students and many many more things.  I was really surprised at the job duties and the informal job duties of a receptionist. My day started out with touring the school before classes.  Mrs. Miller was the receptionist that I monitored for that day.  We checked in the teachers and started to check the mail packages for that day.  Then we moved to answering the phones and checking in parents that had meeting the counselors, teachers and principals.  We also had to do a couple of memos for the school and principals.  From there, it was the occasional answering the phones and monitoring the hallways.  This in itself, was very exhausting for me.  When I think of receptionist, I think of eating donuts, drinking coffee and answering the phones.  After completing this task, I know now that receptionist should not be taken for granted.  They are the backbone of any school and should be given credit to all that they do.

Week 5 Reflection

In week five, I was able to pull everything together.  This course overall, is very demanding and requires a vast amount of team participation.  This weeks assignment dealt with how to assess students. I enjoyed the Edutopia websites and will continue to utilize them through out my career.  I also like how James Paul Gee pointed our that games are more that assessments.  This statement hit home for me.  I started to think about when Mario brothers was on Nintendo game consoles.  In order to bet the game, you had to learn strategies and manipulate the game.  This was all a learning process that was not revealed to me at the time.    

EDLD 5364 Course Reflection

In the beginning of the course, I knew technology played an essential role in today’s education.  My only problem was that I was not up to date on the new technologies used in today’s classroom.  I grew up in the era, when computers were used as a reward for good behavior.  However, through this course, I learned that I’m a constructivist, when it comes to being a teacher and learner.  I’m still set in the pattern of the old traditional style of learning and teaching and these old habits need to be broken.  I believe a number of factors hinder my teaching ability in the advancement of technology in the classroom.  My first obstacle with the course, consist of not being a classroom teacher.  I found myself lost on some of the assignments and doing research on the topics helped me to understand how to complete the tasks/assignments.  My other obstacle came in the form of not knowing and not understanding technology.  When it comes to learning technology, my mind goes blank and shut down on how to integrate the technology into my everyday life events.  For me using new technology is difficult and time consuming.  I rather hold on to the old information and disregard the new because it’s something new and unfamiliar.  However, “students come to school knowledgeable about the Web and its potentials, they are comfortable using it, and expect learning in school to be more like learning on their own” (Solomon and Schrum. p. 30).  This quote made me understand that I, as a teacher and person need to grasp on to today’s technology in order to advance in education.  It’s like the old saying of, you can sink or swim.

As a learner, I learned a vast amount of knowledge on incorporating technology in the classroom through the readings, videos, web conferences, group discussions and wiki and blogs.  I was able to understand how and what my peers thoughts were on different educational topics.  This was an advantage for me due to not being in a classroom.  I had no ideal were the disadvantages or the advantages of having technology present in the classrooms.  Through all of the different forums and media outlets, I learned that I must prepare myself to constantly be flexible with my teaching ideals and concepts.  Pitler stated, “make sense of, or construct new meaning for, new knowledge by interacting with others” (Pitler, 2007, p.139).  I will hold this quote as a golden rule, when I’m learning from other teachers and administrators.

As a lifetime learner, I learned that education is a forever evolving learning process.  In the beginning, we used dirt and stone as a way to educate ourselves, now we use computers and micro-chips for learning advancements.  Through my past interactions and collaboration with my colleagues, I learned that everyone has a different teaching strategy and that flexibility is a key factor in the success of education.  “If educators work together to plan their instruction and simultaneously plan ways to evaluate throughout the unit, they will develop a wide variety of interesting models” (Solomon and Schrum, 2007, p.170).  This quote made understand that peer to peer collaboration is beneficial for all students and teachers to reach life learning goals.

Resources

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K., (2007).  Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. Alexandria, VA:  Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007).  Web 2.0:  New Tools, New Schools.  Eugen, OR:  International Society for Technology in Education.

Week 4 Reflection

This week readings and video were very interesting for me.  I became more knowledgeable on how to integrate technology into the classroom and more about professional development.  If there were not professional development for teachers then there would be no technology usage in classroom.  I believe they go hand in hand with each other in order to facilitate learning.  Once teachers begin to integrate the technology in classrooms, then it will be easier for teachers to differentiate the curriculum for the various student-learning styles in the classroom. 

UDL Lesson Plan

Converting Improper Fractions into Mixed Numbers

Week 3 Reflection

Week three started off little rocky for me however, towards the end of the week the lessons and readings came together.  This week was very productive and challenging for me and I learned an abundance of information about technology.  This was my first time to create an ebook. I found this activity interesting because I didn't know they existed. In the future I will utilize this an ebook in history or language arts classes.  The videos on UDL were also very helpful and informative.The assignments this week made me grow in education and technology.  After researching, planning and organizing, I realized that all of our lesson plans can be applied to accommodate the need of every students.

EDLD 5364 Week 2 Reflection

This week was very productive for my team.  In the beginning of the week, every group member schedule did not allow us to have a collaboration meeting.  However, on Saturday morning we held a hour and a half to two hour meeting, that paved the foundation for project.  Everyone was assigned a task and color theme for doc were assigned, so we could distinguish who made comments.  Overall, my group rocks!!!

My reflection for this week's reading was very interesting.  I read about how technology influences student's self-esteem to learn and how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) are lesson plans that provide multiple means of representation of material. 

EDLD 5364 Week 1 Reflection

This week started off a little rocky for me.  I could not find a group to complete my group assignment portion of the course.  However, good things, come to those who wait. I was able to collaborate with my group members on the project and I'm looking forwards to learning what different teaching techniques each member utilizes in their learning environments. 

Throughout week one, I had the opportunity to learn and reflect on three learning theories through readings and videos.  Through video clips, John Abbott discussed the theory of constructivism, George Simiens explained connectivism theory and Kevin Warwick displayed his knowledge on cyborg learning.  After viewing  and reading this learning material, I realized, that I must make adjustments to my teaching techniques in order to engage students.   

Reflection

Reflection

            When I think of reflection being used in a classroom environment, I think of the childhood game memory.  This memory game engaged you to use problem solving skills, cognitive and reflection skills to master the strategic placements of cards.  In the article “Where is reflection in the learning process?”  I had an AHA moment a time or two.  This article helped me to understand that, I, myself, represent “a product of a standardized system where they (students) were asked to memorized standardized information and spit that information out on standardized tests.” (Gerstein, 2011).  This selection describes my learning process from K-12.  Then I realized that my most productive usage of reflective thinking skills occurred at the college level.  At this learning stage, I understood how to gather, sort and resort information to complete the reflection process.  However, in my opinion, this is a late stage for students to learn the reflection skill.  From the earlier assignments of branding, I believe students should start the learning process of reflection as early as first grade.  This will give students the opportunity to learn and explore one’s self identity and develop intellectual intelligence.  Children should be taught, “Thinking is a state of mind, guessing is not thinking, thinking is life.”  (Fisher, 2004).

            Another AHA moment for me came in the “CRAP” assignment.  Before enrolling in EDLD 5366, I had no idea what efforts went into the development of logos.  Alcantara statement, “The best way to go about tackling this project in my opinion is to pretend you’re an amnesiac.” (Alcantara, L. 2009).  Helped me to understand what was needed to accomplish my personal branding logo assignment.  I was very satisfied with my ending product.  This learning skill will help me to develop posters, brochures, bookmarkers and power point slides for co- workers to utilize in trainings and seminars.

            I will implement the use of web sites into my classroom in the form of weekly blog entries.  Each student will be required to reflect on the lessons for that particular week and make entries of the material they have learned and how they will use the skill in the future.  I foresee, PK-12 classrooms being a virtual learning environment in the future.

Reference

  Alcantara, L. (2009). The art of self-branding, Part 1 Retrieved from                                                  http://www.lealea.net/blog/comments/the-art-of-self-brandign-part-one/

Fisher, Robert. (2004). Think Books:  Writing to Learn.  In Teaching Thinking. Retrieved from http://www.teachingthinking.net/thinking/web%20resources/robert_fisher_thinkbooks.htm

Gerstein, J. (2011, August 16). Where is reflection in the learning process? Retrieved 02/22/ 2012, from User Generated Education: http://www.usergeneratededucation.wordpress

uLearn iLearn Website

https://sites.google.com/site/ulearnilearn/

The Bedford Hour

The Bedford Hour

            I enjoyed listening and reading about “The Bedford Hour” manuscript.  It was very informative and interesting at the same time.  The different images and colors displayed throughout the manuscript represented the social and economic atmosphere during that time period.  The contrast displays the color red, blue, yellow and brown are repetitive in many pages of the manuscript.  The repetition of the different images telling a story and displaying that particular action(s) in detail, are represent throughout the manuscript.   The alignment of the manuscript displays, beautiful and colorful artwork.  There is a visual connection for every story being told through the art graphics.  The proximity of the information is demonstrated in the images of the artwork.  Each character displays a particular action and/or demeanor, that give’s life and meaning to each individual displayed.