Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Class reading: Week Six:Oct 22-28

This week we had to make a Podcast and that was really what I had read most about this week because I was very nervous about creating my own Podcast. Online thankfully there is one million sites that teach you how to make one and why you should at least listen to them and experiment. SO, with my scared lack of technology mind I went to work! I did realize soon after that my teacher did in fact know what he was speaking about Podomatic was the easiest one to use! Ellissa and I spoke into a computer which felt  weird and we often had to stop ourselves from laughing. This was SUCH a fun project once we had the materials to do it correctly. At first we did not have a microphone but our laptop had one that we can use on Powerpoint so we tried for a few hours to make  that work. Then we walked down in the cold dark campus library basement where we found two boys who did not know anything about computers who handed us a broken microphone!! We of course  that it was supposed to look like that never using one before, then I noticed the cord was hanging out! So, we got a different one and from that second on the Podcast had come to life and was truly a blast to do! So this week the reading was much on how to figure out how to make a Podcast and how there really is one on every topic no matter what your interest was. This project was great and doing it was much more informal then what we read, so I am very glad this week our reading was much on our own and experimental.

What I learned: Week Six:Oct 22-28

Inference
In my Comp. class I learned that we all live by inference. What this means is if we see a women on the side of a road dressed in very little clothing and standing on a corner talking to a man who just walked up to her before she leaves with him in a car that she is a prostitute. That is an inference based on the information we have learned before and what we had just watched happen. Another example, if we see the same group walk into a Christian church every Sunday then we can infer that they are Christian. We take the information that we already have learned from past experiences and used that to make an assumption of the information.
We all do this by inference and this is how we live. If we see a dark street in a bad area of town at night we do not walk down it because what we have learned from not so much personal experiences but life situations we have heard about and how make life decisions on our inferences.

Class reading: Week Five:Oct 15-21

SO, this week my readings were all on video productions and how it works in the classroom! I have now realized how much time has gone into each movement and facial expression that goes into each scene. If we can incorporate such a project into a classroom then I think they will have a lot of time into it yet they will have fun even though they will be learning so much about it. For example, when I was in high school kids who were tech savey would make videos for our Shakespeare class and act out scenes in today's terms. I see so much being done with video and when I get the opportunity to teach I hope that I am able to see all that my class had learned.  Also, with Podcasting for audio book reporting and the ability to teach others what they need to know, if our students can not be in class we can make a Podcast for them to listen too! This is also a good thing for our public speaking skills and can help them grow in this department as well which is needed for English majors or English classes. 

What I learned: Week Five:Oct 15-21

Proofs
In my one English class I learned that Aristotle claimed that rhetorics seek available proofs. These proofs are made available for human interactions through sets of circumstances. This is the change that draws attention to mutability of rhetoric. What this means is we can seek or offer certainty prior to composing. When people disagree we need to look at both sides of the situation and think what proofs they have to back up each side. This is how we make all our own discussions in many ways, we look at what each side has to offer and what side we feel will be better qualified or goes along with our beliefs.We need to look at situations that have been ggoing on for years such as gun control and abortion. We will never have a clear answer because everyone has their own strong beliefs in the situation and we all just need to see what side we feel is right and strongest by proofs.

Class Readings: Week Four:Oct 1-7

 I saw someone else post about this article; "Prime Time Literature in the High School,"it got me interested so I read it as well. It is about having non-technical benefits yet using video to fill in. Shafer wants us to see that there are many great opportunities gained by watching videos.Language is the art of life and the most important thing we do, because the world revolves around words.

 If we allow students the ability to create there own project and let them present it in their own way they will be more likely to do more research. In today's world we have more opportunities to get grades then just writing a paper! I am starting to see why this class is so cool, we need to be able to grow and to continue updating with the times. Many students are not good test takers so why cant we create a way for them to show the same information in a way that is best for their learning styles?

Video is just another way for our students to learn and its nice that we can show a video in some format in every class. We can bring in movies and analyse the characters, while some kids have trouble remembering names they can see a movie and put a face to the words. We need to use computers and technology in our classrooms so our students are prepared.

What I learn in this classroom is much a building block because what I need to teach my students will be all new technology that keeps updating. 

What I learned: Week Four:Oct 1-7

Ethos!!!
Seizing the moment and knowing what to say can influence a generation. At all important memorable times we have a famous quote that lines up with that moment. This is not a quiescence, a rhetor takes advantage of a moment to influence a person or group b persuading them and leading them. In war when a group is about to go to battle the leader or general speaks up on how far they have come and they need to fight to death for what they believe. At a half time in a football game the coach needs to take advantage of a moment and say how to fight and how to win and to pep up his boys. This is Ethos and we all need to be able to come to the plate when called upon. 
This is what a rhetoric person does they say what needs to be said when they do not have time to think about it. 

What I learned: Week Three:Sept 24-30

Hey guys!
This week I have something cool to share that I learned in my English class again! It all has to do with the working consensus which is after we have a situation how we handle it. 
For example, if you own a store and a small boy about seven steals a candy bar, do you call his parents or the police? How we handle this situation may very on many circumstances but lets say its the second time you had seen him do it
Lets say you call his parents and they turn out to be really off the rocker (you know really messed up.) When you are on the phone you hear them screaming at the boy. Do you call the police because you feel afraid for the boy? This is a working conccensus because you need to make a decision based on the situation.

What I learned: Week Two:Sept 17-23

So, this week I learned many new things, however; one thing was how we have two types of communication. They can all be broken down into these two categories. One is what we give and the other is what we give off. Give is what we say and not necessarily what we mean. What we give off is our actions and facial expressions and what we really mean, sometimes without us even knowing it. I learned this in one of my English classes because what we say and what we are really saying is something all English majors need to be able to separate. We need to be able to hear the authors words through text and then be able to interpret into what they are really saying to us. 
Then we have definitional disruption which is any situation that is in the ordinary and then something happens to disrupt that situation and make it new. 
For example, if a class is taking a test and the room is quiet and eveyone is thinking and then a student comes in late and has no pants on the class has been disrupted because something came out of the ordinary and made a new situation. 

Class Readings: Week Three:Sept 24-30

 This week I read the Lund article which I did enjoy because it made me understand how I need to embrace new situations. This class overwhelmed me because I am not good with technology however this article made me understand that I need to work hard to over come this issue and that as humans we keep adapting and building on things we think are good to make them better. This article talks about working with changing literacy and how we can adapt to them and how we need to continue to keep progressing so we do not go backwards.A great teaching tool that I saw it use was storyboards and drafting by using pictures. I am not sure if I would be able to teach students how to use technology or make story boards yet but this class is broadening  my horizons and with time I feel I will be able to adapt some aspect of technology into my classroom.

Class Reading: Week Two:Sept 17-23

 I read the Kajder, book and loved many aspects of it. In the section the teacher named Kristen gave students a choice of what to read and present it to their class. However, we see that many kids had problems choosing on there own which is sad. I feel we suck students imaginations out by telling them how to do things and giving directions that we punish them when they do not follow directions that they eventually lose sight of choice. I see however that some kids do need the rubric yet some kids do better on a swing of the moment. We see students such as Leo that had problems with the testing and so do I this is because we all learn differently and we need to be able to continue to update the way we teach with the facts that come our way. We have known for decades that students learn differently and yet we have not changed our teaching style. I do not understand how we give the same test to every student, a student who is going to attend and Ivy League college to be a lawyer and a student who will be a mechanic do not need to know the same materials. These differences are needed to be able to have the world keep moving forward, we need doctors and mechanic s and janitors and baby sitters, these differences do not make one more valuable yet we expect them to be on the same testing level.   

Friday, October 19, 2012

What I Learned: Week One:Sept 10-16

Tonight I got online to do my Blog as I do every Friday night after I work because who would not want to do their homework on a Friday night? Then I noticed that my last two weeks of reading material had been under the Preview section not the Publish section. So, after that depressing moment of seeing I have not figured this website out yet I started to think about the Podcast that my partner and I had made this week. I was amazed to see how many different types of Podcast's are out there and I had never heard of the word before. We did our book podcast on Twilight and found it was very hard to talk into a microphone and still sound like we are just having a normal conversation. We found ourselves laughing at each other during this project and you can hear that in our voices. However, this was a great project and I learned a lot from it and a way to get students interested. So this week in class was a great week with our textbooks and information by learning how to use what we are talking about.