Good Morning Sunshine

As the sun peeks through the curtains, the girl rolls over and squints her eyes. The seagulls squack and the waves roll up onto the shore. The girl throws back her satin sheets and sits up. She sets her feet on the warmed wood floors and stretches her arms over her head. Summer has arrived. Smiling, she makes her way to the window seat. Sitting on her knees, she unlatches the window. A warm breeze whirls up and around her body. She closes her eyes to take in the smell of the salt water and the white sandy beaches. An older man jogs through her field of vision. He is wearing red shorts and a yellow t-shirt. She wonders what music he is playing in his yellow head set.Coming the opposite way, a woman walks by in a black one piece swimsuit. Her cover up skirt dances in the wind. She bends down to collect a seashell. After turning it over a few times, she places it in her yellow bucket. As the woman walks out of the way, Kara decides not to waste any more time.

Leaving the window open, she gets off the bench and makes her way to her oversized, white dresser. Opening the top draw, she picks through a collage of bikinis. Satisfied, she pulls out a turquiose and brown stripped tube top and a solid brown bottom with a turquiose belt attached to both sides. The silver buckle gleams as the sun hits it in Kara's hand. Stepping behind her four folded changing board, she undresses, only to reappear in her swim suit. On her way out, she slips into a pair of brown sandals that are set by the door frame and places a straw hat ontop of her blonde curls. It is 7AM on a beautiful Saturday in June.

As a child, my favorite past time was waking up early Sunday morning and driving to the marina with my family. Sure I was tired, but I always loved to walk down the ramp and find our boat. The smell of the salt water and WaterBaby sunscreen surrounded me. I loved the boat! I loved the ocean! What a beautiful site it was, sitting in the front and gazing at all the pretty houses, wishing that I, too, could some day live there.

Life is amazing and unpredictable;
scary and overwhelming;
sweet and satisfying;
temporary and short.
Life is a precious gift that is too many times taken for granted.
Life is living with the people you love.
Where ever life takes me, I will always be running along the shoreline, splashing under the sun.

EME 2040 Introduction to Computers in Education

"Before entering EME 2040, I had no idea what I was in for. I thought the class would be easy going and be one of those "break" classes that you take to balance out the harder courses. Well to my surprise, this course was one of those "harder" courses. All through the first half of this course, I struggled to complete assignments to my greatest effort while submitting them on time. Time was the greatest challenge."

EME 2040 is definitely one of those classes I will always remember. I understood the value to the assignments, there were just so many of them to complete and deadlines that had to be met via the internet that made me freak out every once in awhile. To my knowledge though I am doing very well in this class. It did take me awhile...well a long while, before I actually opened up and enjoyed what I was learning. Some of the assigments I did not enjoy, while others were fun. My favorite assignment the first half of the semester was my Education Milestones project. That was the very first assignment I posted too. In spite of everything though, EME 2040 has really taught me the value of reflection and thinking things through. My midterm feedback contains more personal thoughts on the first half of this course and my reasons for them. What was everyone else's first reaction?

Evaluation, Feedback and Follow up.

This section of my classroom activity is supposed to be in a table, however, I am not able to compose a table in here so I will simply describe in as much detail and use bullets for main ideas and subpoints. Before I begin, these are my objectives:

1. define what a polynominal is
2. distinguish between the three types of polynomials
3. know how to simplify polynomials
4. know how to add, subtract, and multiple polynomials

In order for me to know whether the above objectives have been reached, I will be giving a test the next day after the Bingo game. The test will be a combination of short answer and multiple choice. The test will be a total of 14 questions. Some of the short answer problems I had in mind resemble the following:

1. A polynomial is made up of ______ and ______. (2 points)
2. Simplify the following polynomials (List about 4 that the students will have to do). (1 point for each problem)
3. Decide if the polynomial is a monomial, binomial, or trinomial (List 4 different examples and the students will write beside each one their answer). (1 point for each problem)

The multiple choice questions will be a variety of easy to intermidiate level polynomial problems. The students will solve the problems by adding, subtracting, or multiplying the polynomials. I will give the students a choice of four answers and they will need to show how the got to the answer in order to receive full credit for the answer they chose. There will be about 5 of these questions worth 2 points each.

The test will be worth a total of 20 points. Students will be able to receive half credit on the problems that are worth 2 points. I may add an extra credit problem worth 2 points so that I can challenge the students that know the material well. The students will only be able to receive half credit if they start out the extra credit correct, but get it wrong because of a minor error.

Jumping back a step, my Bingo review game will consist of easier level problems for the students that may not be at higher level, and will consist of more difficult problmes for the more advanced students to challenge them. At the end of the game, I will collect all the work and look over each individual problem and see what the students were able to do or where they struggled. I will not grade their work by means of right or wrong. The work will help me determine how much each student participated and it will count towards their participation grade for the grading period.

To give a quick summary, the students will do the game, turn in their work, take the test the next day, and for a follow up, complete a short questionaire, or "reflection", for homework. I will hand the students a sheet of paper with a few guidelines to follow and then the outcome will be at least half a page and a max of one page, double spaced, Word document with their response to the game and the test.

The student will write the paper along the lines of the following questions:

1. What did you like most about the Bingo game and why?
2. What did you like least about the Bingo game and why?
3. What could I have done differently to make the game better if you did not like it?
4. Was the game helpful in reviewing for the test? Why or why not?
5. Was the material on polynomials covered well? Why or why not?
6. Describe one or two things that you did not know about polynomials that you learned.

This is not meant to be a hard assignment or a long assignment. The objective is for the students to be able to think about what they learned and how they learned, or why they were not able to learn the material. Another reason why I am doing this sort of follow up is for the students to let me know, as a new teacher, how well I am doing and what I need to revise for next year to teach better. I am not exactly sure how much this should be worth. I am thinking only about 5 or 10 points.

There is a lot of information here so I am going to stop. I hope everyone who reads this understands my goals and expectations for the students!

Learning Something New Everyday

After about 4 weeks of doing these posts, I finally know how to add color to my posts! I did not understand how everyone had all the colors and bulleted lists because I never saw the buttons. Well at least not until I clicked "compose". Duh! This post is color but I think I still like it in the original style. Who knows, maybe in the future I will use color again.

I am so ready for this month to be over with! There is a lady at work that is training to be an assistant manager. She is super nice and always on the go! I think I met my match at work- haha. I thought I was the only person running around trying to do things fast to get people out and on their way but she was actually making me tired. Quite interesting.

Well I am also done with my game for this group project. What a relief! I am not so sure about this whole singing thing though. I usually get nervous/comfortable and start laughing. I can not wait until I start some new classes. You know how you get so far into the course and then you are just looking forward to a change? It happens every semester for me. Only this time I have summer term to look forward too. I took my orientation for the college of education so the whole "college" thing is really starting to hit me. I am shocked that I will already be done with 2 years this summer. Amazing. But that is life. I just look forward to life after college!

One week and I will be here again...

E-book Review

"When Janice began to watch them, I could tell she was listening and understanding everything that the narrators were saying. She has a more positive reaction to 50 Below Zero because of the animation in the book. The narrator changed his voice many times which expressed surprise and anticipation for what was going to happen next."

Janice is my 11 year old sister. After I did my e-book reviews, I had her listen to two that were my favorite; IT, It's Time by Mary Ann Fraser, and 50 Below Zero by Robert Munsch. For those of you who are not fimilar with these e-books, they are called Tumble books and can be found at the Lee County Library website (www.lee-county.com/library). You have to click on the link "programs", "fun kid links" and then I believe the Tumble Book shows up in the upper left hand corner. You cannot miss him! He is a blue book that has hands and feet and is doing cart wheels!

Writing this assignment on my experience with a younger child was interesting. There were two surpises. The first surprise were her reactions to the books. I thought she would enjoy It, It's Time more than the second book. When I read over it, it was very creative and contained more in depth pictures. She said that the book I liked was "boring, expect when the mouse fell in the garbage can". "Okay" I thought. But now I definitely understand why she enjoyed the 50 Below Zero book better. It is all about the animation! Go figure. I should have known. I cannot really put into words how the animations are used because it is so original and creative. For one of the pages, the father is snoring and the soap falls into the bathtub! Repeating throughout the story, the boy wakes up and yells at his dad to "WAAAAKEEEE UUPP!" The story is crazy! Janice had began to read along with it just because it was so catchy.

The second surprise was when I asked Janice what she thought the main difference was between regular books and the e-books she listened too. Her immediate respone, without hesitation, was "they are more alive". Needless to say, this activity definitely taught me that young kids think a lot and tell you how it is. I also learned that e-books are a good way of sharing new information. When I asked Janice what she learned, she said "Time and not to sleep walk". All in all, to my surprise, I enjoyed viewing the e-books. My e-book review discusses the reactions of myself and my sister after viewing the e-books. As a teacher, I think that e-books are a good form of technology to integrate into the classroom, especially pre-k and elementary levels.

Process and Instructions

Following Dr. Baylen's instructions, I have written out a step by step proceedure for my class activity. I tried to be detailed!

1. Class will begin promptly when the bell rings. I will call role and the students will answer “here”.

2. I will ask the students to take out their BINGO card and then ask students to raise their hand if they forgot theirs. I will pass out extras, if necessary. I will have already explained the directions from the last class so our time is longer to play, but, I will briefly ask if there are any questions and briefly answer them while I am passing out pieces of shredded paper to use as markers.

3. I will already have the power point loaded so once the materials are set, I will begin the power point slide. Each slide will have one question.

4. The students will need to have a sheet of paper and write out how the got the answer. For each problem, I will wait about 2 minutes, depending on the amount of work required to do it. Calculators will be allowed.

5. When a student has an answer on their BINGO card, they will write the problem number on the piece of shredded paper and cover that answer.

6. I will ask the class to keep talking to a minimum and they will not be allowed to ask each other for help.

7. When a student has BINGO, they will call out “BINGO” and then I will check his or her loose leaf paper to make sure he or she showed how they got the answer and check off the marks. If the student did not get BINGO then we will continue playing. If a student does receive BINGO, I will hand out some sort of prize, like a piece of candy or pencil and we will start a new game.

8. The game will last until the last 10 minutes of class. I will collect their BINGO cards and ask one student to go around the desks with the trash to throw away the shredded pieces of paper. I will also ask the students stay in their seats while I tell them about what they need to bring for the next class for the test (outcome) I will also tell them their homework and they will be writing this down in their agendas (feedback and evaluation). If there is extra time, I will ask for questions otherwise, they will be asked to remain in their seats until the bell rings and they may talk quietly.

Well that is the revision for this week. I have started to look up some websites that can help me with some math problems. So far, I have one and it is really giving me an idea of what to start with and include for the math problems. I guess I should have about 30 questions. The cards will hole 25 answers but I want some extra problems so every card does not have all the same answers. I will be glad when I get to see the final product though! Until next time...

Dreaming

Thinking back on the last 2 weeks, it feels as if a whole month should have passed by and it should be the first of April tomorrow. This week has gone by in sort of a blur. A lot of things said and done, and yet I do not recall a whole lot. Today definitely feels like the end of the week. I tried to get on here earlier this evening but something was messing up. This site seems to be having some "technical difficulties". Technology can be such a blessing and a breeze, and yet when things go wrong, it just seems to be the worst thing in the world. The idea of computers has completely gone overboard in my world. I cannot wait until summer when I get to walk away from them all and not worry about whether my internet will be working so I can get my work done for class. This summer I am going to create scrapbooks by hand and not do any research on the internet.

On a more positive note, I am very glad to announce that my spring break was great and I wish I could be back in that time frame. I had a wonderful time and I now am able to begin planning for a wedding. Yes, I have heard a lot of people around campus talk about engagements and marriage, but it is definitely exciting and not old news in my world.

I really did not have anything to say this week, just filling up space. Tomorrow is a new day and the start of a new week. I cannot wait to be back here writing my third post for the coming week. I hope everyone else had a good spring break. Do not forget about your storybook on Wednesday and the 30 questions that are based on it! Good luck.

Intergenerational Technology Biography

"As a child growing up, my grandfather, John Van Der Ploeg, remembers his earliest piece of technology as the movie projectors that used 16 millimeter film. Other popular gadgets in his home were the alarm clock, portable radio, box cameras, and four party line phones. Unlike today’s telephones, a four party line phone was connected to four different homes. If the line was busy, he could listen on the other person’s conversation and you had to wait until one party was finished before you could use it. If there was an emergency, you simply asked the party to get off the line for a moment."

Interviewing my grandfather about his experiences with technology while growing up was quite interesting. My first reaction to a four party line phone, was "Wow!" I cannot imangine having only one phone line, needless to say sharing it with three other families. Hearing my grandfather and watching his expressions was like one of those "priceless" moments. As I had to think back to my childhood and compare my technology experiences with my grandfather's, they were different in the sense that my technologies were advancements of most of his and I grew up with some different items. Similarly, we share common characteristics in how we learn technology.

Writing up this assignment also let me hear a different perspective of how technology impacts our living today. For my grandfather, technology has been nothing but a positive learning tool in his life. With that, he only mentioned positive social consequences, whereas I tend to lean more towards the negative social consequences first. In all, writing this technology biography about my grandfather has opened my eyes to what life was back in the early 1900's and I was able to learn more about his life.

Classroom Activity

Bingo Review

Reviewing the comments that were made, the main objective for my students will be to help the class learn and practice for a test, while having a little fun.

This classroom activity is to help students further understand the previous material covered in class. In order to participate, the students need to have been turning in their homework and in class assignments and just have passed the previous math courses.

I have decided that for this game, the students only need to be responsible for bringing in thier own game card. I will give the class a list of answers via e-mail and show them how to create their own card in class. If they do forget their card, I will have extras to pass out. The pieces of technology that I will be integrating are e-mail, powerpoint, microsoft word, and their calculators.

The grade level is 10th grade math which will be based on Algebra. The game will take about an hour to play. I will take the first 20 minutes of class time to explain how the game will work and then the remaining time we will play the game. The activity will be in the classroom.

The students will all have one card and about 20 pieces of ripped paper to cover their spots. Each powerpoint slide will consist of one math problem and each student will do the math on a separate sheet of paper. If they have the answer on thier BINGO card, the student will write the number of the problem on one of the pieces of ripped paper and cover the spot. After a student has achieved "BINGO" then the student will show me his or her work. If the student does not have "BINGO" the game will continue. At the end of the time, each student will turn in their papers to recieve a completion grade.

The next class period, the students will take the test. The test will show me how well the students learned the material. After the test, the students will write up a short Word document telling me what helped them the most to learn the material, and if they had any problems understanding. This will help me teach in the future.

I am still thinking about how I will deal with the students that are left behind or more knowledgeable. I am also still researching what kind of math problems I should include in my game.

Am I There Yet?

That is what I have been asking myself since the beginning of the semester! 2006 has been crazy and I know it is only to get more and more busy. At first I did not mind college, now I wish I could start the next phase of my life! Speaking of that, this week has been a little better since my last post. I tried hard to keep my goal and am going to try again this coming week. But anyways, I really hate to write about negative feelings and things so with a positive note, I would like to share a book I am reading with you all.

It is called The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Great book! Although I am not married, it has been interesting to read stories of married couples that have learned to speak each other's language. In case you are wondering, they are;

1. Words of Affirmation
2. Quality Time
3. Acts of Service
4. Receiving Gifts
5. Physical Touch

I actually used the topic of love and relationships as an informative speech for my public speaking class. I give it the Wednesday we get back. I have learned that love, whether you are in a friendship, marriage, dating, or other relationship, it is so important to understand the other person's feelings. The book has really helped me to slow down my mouth and think before I speak. Relationships are important. Of course you cannot please everyone or become best friends with every person you meet, but just knowing how to talk to someone on the street can make a situation or day less stressful. I always favored the phrase, "a smile goes a long way," because really, passing someone on the street, giving a smile, could cheer them up and then in return, they smile at someone else and it continues. I know I always feel good when people are smiling and not rushing me. This book just gives good advice on how to love and like I said, it is benefitial for anyone. He also has a book about the love languages of singles and children. I enjoy reading, especially self-improvement books. So with that note...smile (besides that, it is spring break!).

Creating a Family Tree

In addition to my previous assignments I had posted for you all to see, I also completed a small family tree through Microsoft Word. It was a very short assignment and fairly easy to do. The project could be used to create idea webs for English class, or for creating an organizational chart of people, family, etc. Using the drawing tool bar, I began by inserting a shape. From there, I used "subordinate, coworker, and assistant" to create a family tree. After the outline was done, I used other shapes to build my legend. After that, I colored in the shapes with a variety of colors that matched my legend. It was fun and quick, but I actually prefer to draw out my own.

In high school for a final project I had to make, I created my own family tree by drawing a picture of a tree and then filling in my family in the branches and leaves. My tree for that project was definitely smaller though. The good thing about using Microsoft is that the program resizes the shapes so that as you continue to build the tree, or diagram, it fits all on one page. The frustrating part was trying to keep my tree the size I wanted. Because all the shapes are connected, I was not able to move them individually around so it was difficult trying to add the legend and my name to my document. The best of the whole project though, was grouping my family memebers. Although I was just adding in the names, certain memories were triggered for each person.

My family tree is just shown from my dad's side. If you would like to see how I created it, feel free to check it out!