ResumeMVR

Here’s my updated resume! Thanks for the suggestions guys, they really helped clean it up!

Maria

Creating an Interactive Lesson for the classroom, may be harder than it looks, but I’m going to try to break it down into some simple steps.

Step One: Choose a topic that your students will relate to, and that fits into the curriculum. For this post I’ll be using Advertising as a topic, within the larger unit of Mass Media Communication.

Step Two: Set specific objectives for your lesson. What exactly do you want your students to know by the end of the lesson? Objectives should be stated in measurable terms so that your students can meet those goals. It could read something like:

The students will be able to identify their target market  for their given product and create an appropriate logo, and slogan within one class period.

This way the objective is measurable, and has a time limit on it, this gives students incentive to finish because they know what is expected of them. To read more on objectives go here.

Step Three: Create a multitude of ways to absorb the information. The more differentiated the lesson the better. Create a worksheet or handout, that states your specific objectives and is a visual map for students to follow. Also, follow up your worksheet with a presentation. Standing in front of the class, writing on the board isn’t enough anymore. Students need their information presented to them in many ways because it is in every other facet of their life. A PowerPoint or video would be appropriate here. Much like this one: ADvertising

Step Four: Follow up during the lesson with questions that will keep students engaged. Create links to their personal lives, connections and references that they understand. Embarrass yourself if you must by singing jingles from common commercials to show them the effectiveness of creative and good advertising. Create a game out of identifying logos from different companies around the world. There are many ways to keep the students attention during an interactive lesson, the key is finding the right one for you and your students.

Step Five: After the lesson is all over, its important to close it by reiterating the important facts.  Making sure students know what it is they have learned, and where they are going to be going with the information they just learned. Are they going to complete an assignment with a group? Or are they just going to forget the info? Without a clear goal they won’t understand the importance of remembering the material.

Step Six: The next time you see the students, make sure you follow up and make sure they remember most of the material you covered. The more ways you present the information, the more students will completely comprehend what you’re covering, and you’ll get better results!

After reading some of the other people’s blogs about public persona’s I realized just how important it really is no matter what line of work you are in.  This comment off Jon’s blog was really eye opening.

“Media convergence has made this possible and allows ordinary people with an Internet connection to display their own masterpieces.”

He referenced Beinger, which we read in ICM 501. I really feel like this is very important to the public persona of today. No matter whether you want one or not, you are most likely going to have a persona because of the internet.  Specifically related to teachers, there are a number of sites that deal with the students perception of the teacher. Sites like Rate My Teacher, or Rate My Professors are becoming more and more popular with students. They can grade their teachers based on “Easiness”, “Helpfulness”, “Clarity”, and “Popularity.”  In college, we would make our schedules around what professors we heard were easy, or fun, or which professors had a talent for making students cry. This was mostly spread by word of mouth, you heard it from your friends, or someone who knew someone who had that teacher, but now it is readily accessible online for everyone to see.

I could see how this could cause an issue with future employers. Say a teacher is moving school districts, her possible future district could look her up on Rate My Teachers, or Facebook, and already know what students think of her, and have a image of her that might be incorrect, or totally off base. Employers are becoming more and more internet savvy as they find ways to research their future employees before hiring. Do they have a Facebook, a blog, a Linkin? What is there online presence? Some employers, like school districts don’t want you to have any online presence whatsoever, so that they can avoid lawsuits, or possible meetings with parents, or situations that might lead to being uncomfortable in the administrations point of view.

Overall, I think it is up to us to manage our own pubic persona’s. We should keep an eye out for what is happening under our names online. Teachers can request to have their names taken off the Rate My Teacher’s website, you can beef up the security on Facebook so that not even the Marine’s could find you, and you can Google Search yourself every once in a while to see that comes up, and then maybe do something about it if you don’t like it. It is our responsibility to keep up with the times and monitor our own online presence.

I’m hoping to get some feedback for my niche. There are two ways in which I can go. I would like to either delve into the topic of the very tight network security within public school walls, which Steve mentioned in a comment, or try on how technology is being misused, if used at all within the classroom. I’m afraid there will not be enough information for the first one because there is only so much a teacher, or school district can do because of state regulations as to what network security needs to be. With the second, I have first-hand experience dealing with many different kinds of technology within my own classroom, but have witnessed the lack there of in others or the blatant resistance to learn something new to help the students. This might also be the more controversial of the topics because of teacher’s righteous indignation that they feel they don’t need to learn technology in order to help their students because they’ve been doing it the same way for years. That might strike a chord with some, but I doubt any of them, read blogs.

I’m back after a short hiatus due to final exams and the end of the school year! I shall be posting my work very soon! Thanks everybody!

I”m so proud of my school!!!! They deserve this!

Having a public persona in the education world is a tricky thing. You either want to have a great, established one, or not at all. Teachers in the opposite direction, aren’t teachers for long.  Having a public persona in a high school is tricky.  Students judge you based on what they hear from other students, and let their preconceived notions factor into how they react in class. The teachers with good public persona’s aren’t always the nicest ones. I think the qualities students admire most are respect, fairness, and being genuine in caring about their lives.  I took a poll among my students, and most said they would rather have a fair and hard teacher, than an easy but biased teacher. I’ve also found it doesn’t matter how old you are. Respect is respect. If you show it to them, and treat them as adults, they forgive your faults, and accept you as the teacher you want to be for them. It’s nice to have a good public persona in school. It can alleviate a lot of problems like under-enrollment, issues with administration, and general report with the parents.  With the development of sites like Rate My Teacher, and Rate my Professor students actually have the power to rate teachers on specific criteria. It ranks from “Easiness”, “Coolness”, “Strict/Mean” and “Hotness.” I’ve heard of students not taking certain classes because of things their friends have said or reviews they’ve read online. On college campuses, professors have it the same. Students would make their entire schedules around the classes that were taught by professors who were recommended by peers or online.  The education public persona is a dangerous and tricky thing.

-Maria-

Steve I commented on your blog! I was wondering, how do you do those pingbacks?

http://tinyurl.com/23y983a

Jon I commented on your blog!

http://tinyurl.com/2aaoq9j

Posted to the left is my resume!

-Maria-

Deciding a topic has been a lengthy process for me. I have finally decided on Use of technology and decentralization of network security in public schools. Considering I spend most of my time in a school, and I face these problems on a day to day basis, it seems logical to write about them. The major problems teachers face in public schools are: Lack of proper technology, lack of training on said technology, strict network security , centralization of technology that makes it impossible for teachers to access what they need. Teacher’s have always been at the back end of the emerging technologies. Depending on the school district, some classrooms have great technology, some have mediocre technology, and some have none at all.  The problem lies after the classrooms receive technology. I teach a Multimedia Communications course, and we study all different types of media and how to create messages across platforms. I have 5 decent Macintosh computers in my classroom, as well as an LCD projector, video and photography cameras, and various microphones, and card readers. I cannot access anything of value, or anything that is different, from the web. The network security is so strict, Google Images is blocked. It’s ridiculous. I can see if school districts wanted to block YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, which they all do, but Google Images? It would be different if teacher’s were allowed access to certain sites so that we can find new and creative things to show our students, but the security is district wide. Nobody has access.  We did a unit on network neutrality, which the students had never heard of before, and in order to find videos and web clips and information, I had to save all of it the night before on my laptop.  Many teachers, and a lot of students, find proxies to get around the network security, mostly so they can check their various social networking sites. I, of course have no such program directly installed on my home laptop, which is what I use at school. Definitely not. Let’s go back to the technology. I am very lucky to have what I have in my classroom, and keep it guarded and under lock and key at all times. Many teachers still have overhead projectors, or have to share them with an entire dept. History lessons can benefit from technology too! We have several SmartBoards in our school, but ask how many teachers are trained on them? They hang on the wall as decorated white boards. If teachers were trained in how to use the limited amounts of technology in their rooms, then we would have more successful lessons. The bottom line is having, learning, and using the tools in order to give students differentiated and valuable real-life lessons.

I would appreciate any suggestions and comments to improve my topic! Thanks, Maria.