I found filming myself to be awkward and difficult. I think it would have been easier if I had someone interviewing me and someone to have a conversation with. When I was interviewing my friend, I found it a lot easier and a lot less awkward being on camera. I don't feel like recording in general was hard for me, even though I didn't really want to do it. I think creating the video and having my idea come across will be harder for me. I get really frustrated when technology doesn't work how I want it too, so editing will probably be more frustrating for me personally. I think when it comes to our students and the challenges they would face with an activity like this really depends on the student and their personality. I know some students don't like being on camera and don't want pictures of themselves taken. Personally I would talk to the student and see if there was a way we could still have them do the activity. I would never force a student to do something they are uncomfortable with IF there was another way to do it that was just as appropriate to get the skills across.
I am all about getting out of comfort zones and pushing yourself to try new things, but at the same time I am a big scaredy - cat, so I understand both sides. I am all about getting on students level and talking to them and hearing their thoughts and opinions. I also know when you can push students who are just trying to get out of something. I think as teachers we know how to balance our curriculum with students mental health. I have never given students a project that I wouldn't personally do. However, I have never given a project that involves videotaping themselves. I think after this program I am going to be more willing to incorporate different technology tools. I am honestly having a hard time wrapping my head around everything I need to get done. The time and energy needed to complete the capstone video SERIUOSLY scares me. (Yes I know this is a masters program and yes I know I signed up for this). I have dabbled with video making when I was in high school.... eight years ago. I think what makes me nervous is getting the action shots to make this film masters worthy. Not only is it summer, so there are no more kids in the classroom, but it is a covid-19 summer. No faculty are allowed on campuses anymore, we had to turn in our keys. PLUS, I am moving to a new school and technically don't work for NVUSD anymore. I see my video turning out more like Karly Miller's mostly because we don't have access to students or our classrooms. I know I will get it done and I will put in my full energy, but it's getting harder and harder each day as my infant is getting more and more active and I am home alone most of the day. It will get done. My audience will be for teachers and I am going to try to tug on their writing heart strings. I have a lot of ideas in my head but none of them are coming together really yet. I'm also nervous about the skills needed to make this video, but again it will get done.
When it comes to designing my logo, I have this idea of different images I want to combine to make my logo: pencil, binder paper, computer, and E for Elementary. I used freelogodesign.com for creating my first draft but instantly got frustrated (shocker). I couldn't figure out how to make the different images a color other than black and it divided different parts of an image which became a problem when trying to change the size of the image. However with this frustration I was still able to create a logo that will be posted below. I actually really like how my first draft came out, however I really want it to have color. Downloading the image wasn't difficult and overall the website wasn't the worst ever. I do want to create this logo using something else and I will need to figure that out still. I also couldn't figure out how to incorporate the binder paper. I was thinking it could be the background behind the E or I could just use the binder paper blue color as the background. These are the colors I am thinking of:
When it came time to choosing a topic for our research project I knew that I wanted to do writing. My topic was not hard for me to decide on, what was hard was narrowing it all down to make it tangible for the program and time frame. I wanted to focus on how students respond to writing prompts because I knew that I wanted to focus on getting my students CAASPP ready since third grade is the first time they ever take it. However, responding to prompts is a huge task and it requires teaching all writing types and I was told that was too big of a project. So instead I narrowed down my big picture to focusing on writing a narrative.
Writing in general is HARD for kids. They have so many thoughts and are barely able to spell, so writing becomes tedious and it is simply just freakin' hard for these poor eight and nine year olds. Through my short four years of teaching I noticed that kids cannot write a grade appropriate narrative. I noticed that teachers typically focus on informational text because that is what might get used more often in their academic careers. I knew the basics of what students needed but I really felt lost on how to help students be successful and make more than a years growth in writing. After completing my rounds of research it has become clear to me that kids need to be taught writing. It's not something that should be pushed to the side. They need explicit writing instruction. They need visuals and they need time to collaborate with their peers. All of these things are key to student success. Keeping these things in mind, I plan on taking these observations and ah ha's and applying them to all writing types; informational, narrative, and opinion. I will be teaching first grade next year and my writing lessons will look significantly different. However what will remain the same is the three things I stated before. Students need explicit instruction, collaboration time, and visuals to be successful. I plan on taking what I learned from teaching students a narrative to continuing down the path of focusing on each individual type of writing. I hope that I can take what I learn and share it with my new team and new school next year and the years to follow Transliteracy
Noun(countable and uncountable, plural transliteracies)
I never really thought about transliteracy before starting this masters program. While I always thought using technology would be awesome with my kiddos, I never really thought about what the benefits would be other than technology is fun to use. But after going through these classes and seeing the benefits from technology in my own classroom, I will always stress the importance of transliteracy. I saw increased student engagement and progress with student writing by incorporating technology into my writing lessons. My students were so excited to share their storyboards that they created. They put in more time and energy into those storyboards than any other writing assignment I attempted with them. They worked so hard to get their narratives across in their storyboards and were excited to share their work with friends like never before. While I still strongly believe in the importance of pencil and paper work, incorporating tenchnology where it can enhance learning is important for students to learn 21st century skills. Students need to learn how to type by second grade. This skill is crucial for student success in third grade to take CAASPP. A computer based test that requires computer skills. By third grade students need to have some form of transliteracy to be successful with this state test. After realizing this in this program and from teaching third grade, I am planning on incorporating transliteracy teaching for the rest of my career in the primary grades. I will be teaching first grade next year and I am already trying to figure out programs and tools I can use to start transliteracy for my next kiddos. Sketch noting I think is a great tool for kids who doodle. I am not one of those kids. Trying to come up with images was a struggle for me. I am the type of person however who likes to write down EVERYTHING so when I go back later I don't miss anything important. So trying to put whole thoughts into one or two images was hard for me. I think sketch noting would be a great tool to introduce notetaking skills to the primary grades, maybe in second grade. It is a fun way to introduce pulling out the most important information. Also I think it could keep kids minds on task because they would be sketching about what you are saying. I love allowing students to draw during read alouds sometimes with the only rule you need to draw about what you hear about. Their images in the end are really interesting |
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