Well the time is passing by very fast. I am really enjoying the information that I am reading about in the textbook. I enjoy reading about how different school settings are faced with problems that we as educators will be or are facing. The chapters do a great job breaking down the topics and go into great detail about subjects that are difficult to comprehend.
I really liked working with some of the activities this week, including mostly the internet searching. I am a habitual user of Google. I know there is so much more out there, but I have my email linked through there and the access is so easy. This week I noticed that I started researching using a variety of different websites including ask.com and Yahoo. I even had my students complete an assignment in which they were not allowed to utilized Google at all. At first they really fought me and some of them still are, but in general most of them understand what I was trying to get across. Hopefully in the near future I can incorporate a variety of different assignments in which the students must meet these requirements.
The word processing programs have been fun to utilize. I have shown these different formats to students in my engineering classes because they are required to do a lot of collaborative work with each other. Being able to have students working on multiple documents allow individuals to all be active in the classroom setting, with nobody sitting idle.
I am happy overall so far with how things have been going. The work load is enough so that it balances my career. Students are interested in what I bring in for new ideas every Wednesday from my masters class. I hope that I continue to gain information from the text and the presentations that will affect all of the subjects that I teach.
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Nick,
ReplyDeleteYou are a braver soul than me by having your students experiment with different search engines. I am curious to know what grade level and ability level students you had trying alternative search engines. I also am a habitual google user, and have found it challenging to break away from this comfortable relationship. But as I have tried other search engines, I realize the importance of being open-minded towards different ways to search the internet. As I have told you, my students are resistant to anything that involves work, so I am interested to hear more about your students reactions to the search engine assignment. Did you give students a list to choose from, or were they able to choose on their own? Any information you could give me on this project would be appreciated. I would love to adapt that project in one of my classes, obviously giving proper credit to its creator. :) If nothing else, I think it is important to continually expose students to new ways of accomplishing tasks, so they will be more prepared for what is expected of them in the future.
Engaging these assignments with students really lets you see how powerful they are - they teach us so much at the same time. Nice work!
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