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.