Media Scrapbook

For my African American Expereince class I decided to have the students do a media scrapbook as a lit set assessment. The students read different novels about inner-city life. I picked the groups so that the 5 members of each group read a differnt novel. Their duty was to creat a visual representation (media scrapbook) of the common themes, and messages that ran through their novels. They were only to use technology to accomplish this task. The visual wsas to serve as the voice for the group and therfore no students were allowed to speak during teh presentation. The scrapbooks turned out really well. Some students used power point others Windows Movie Maker. I was surprised th way they were ab le to streamline videos, incorporate music, voice overs, and the creative graphics they used to tell a story of iner city living. The students were able to see the power that music, words, and colors, have on the construction of media and teh messages that are conveyed.

The project helped teh students better uderstand the inner-city experience and the social implications atttached to this lifestyle. Through their creativity, they were able to bring into the classroom, through a short 4 minute presentation, social stigmas, hurt, pain, suffering, determination, perseverance, pressures, and strengths and weaknesses of inner city living as shown through their novels. Because students can relate well to music, pictures, and short quotes, better than novels at times, through the use of technology, the presentations allowed students a second chance to receive the messages that they may have during teh reading of tehir novel, and bring to understanding other aspets that they may have missed due to a monlithic reading. I hvae to say that my co-teacher and I were very pleased!

The Simplicity of A SMART BOARD

It surprises me the level of excitement that students have based on the sole fact that you are using a SMART BOARD in class. I am still very technologically illiterate and up to this point, I have only used it for on a very basic level. We have always had a data projector in the classroom and we used it for power point presentations, but it constricted us to simply using the direct instruction method. The students automatically become jaded to the thought of using power points because teachers often use this as their basic means of instruction. Though we use the smart board in the same manner, it seems to illicit a different response. It allows the students to become active participants in the direct instruction method. We can call on students to simply draw, underline, add to, or subtract from our power points with the color pens and they seem to love it. They are engaged a lot longer and they seem to not mind taking the notes because the “add-ons” allow them to better remember each slide.
I have also utilized my Smart Board over the past week during writing instruction. We do not know how to use the writing instruction program yet but the smart board was still able to make it successful. As we continue to receive more training on the use of our smart board it will allow us to have more intriguing and effective lessons.

SNOW DAYS!!!!

I remember when I used to love snow days. School was out, I could sit back and relax for a whole day, and do a whole lot of nothing. In high school, my friends and I would try to drive to each other's houses whether we were out for snow or ice, not caring that we were putting our lives in danger. We were often unseuccessful, but hey, we gave it a try. Snow days in Kansas City means that there is no physical way possible to get to school. I would say that the KCMO district is almost like MU it's rare that it shuts down.

Now I'm on the other side of education, I hate snow days!!! They get in teh way of the wonderful plans you had for the students, set your schedule back, and interrupts preparation time for the semester final (now that Columbia has the semester ending before the break. Snow days in Columiba dont seem to make sense to me sometimes. I know that it's not a reflection on the district, but the city as a while because of the ineffective method of getting the streets cleaned. It seems to me, as I look outside, that I definitely should have been able to go to school today. I tried to give the city the benefit of the doubt and think that possibly the storm was supposed to pick up while we were in school but then the weather man negated that thought and said that the storm and cool air were not going to be around this part of Missouri until 6:30 tonight and that we'd be above freezing for most of teh day. I give the district extra credit for being proactvie and cancelling school early on Sunday night, but I it seems that we could have been on snowroutes and been in school yesterday as well.

I guess I'm just complainig because I got up so early to get ready for school, excited to see my students and now I cant see them and i can't go back to sleep either. Honestly, I gues I'll just get a few things accomplished, God knows (and the Fellows do too ) that I have so many other things that need to be done as well. I guess I've vented enough about my hatred for snow days and the inconvenience they cause because now I feel a littel better.