Things I learned this week that were completely new to me started with the importance of emphasize visual literacy in schools today. This started with viewing Martin Scorsese's video on edutopia.org, on the importance of visual literacy. He describes the challenges that he face growing up in an environment that did not provide a lot of access to visual media. Being a highly advanced visual learner and interpreter (I base this on his obvious success in his film career), he had to compensate himself by finding his own outlets for his skills. It wasn't until later in his development, when he gained more access to films and finally the camera, that he was able to fully produce his best work. He also points out all of the ways which film, in particular, can be used to show human behavior, psychology, stories, scenes, settings, history and so much more. He also notes that even camera techniques - zooming, angle, panning, booming, etc. - can convey meaning in film. Thus, our interpretation of 'what visual literacy means,' is broadened.

    I also learned the difference between synchronous and asynchronous tools. Synchronous tools are more live-based tools for visual literacy such as white-boarding and video/web-conferencing. Asynchronous tools are more previously-stored tools that are readily accessible. I think educators rely heavily on asynchronous methods, which encourages me to try to use more synchronous methods in the future. I think video-conferencing with a class in France, for example may do a lot to improve global citizenship: a lot more than an average foreign language class may provide.

     I'm also excited about using edmodo.com which is a safe social media reminiscent program that allows teachers to set up accounts for their classroom, and create integrative presentations activities and much more that can allow both teachers and students to contribute to the use of visual literacy in the classroom. I also focused a lot on how this could be used for collaboration. Thanks to the www.jakesonline.org blog I learned about a lot of tools that are great for 21st century collaborators to increase visual literacy. I also thought about how this tied into the NETS standards for teachers, in particular, #5. Engage in professional growth and leadership. We can grow ourselves by constantly researching new ways to incorporate visual literacy into our lessons. Also, we can demonstrate leadership by encourage collaboration in visual literacy with other teachers. Finally, we can demonstrate how important it is for our students global digital citizenship to be able to easily navigate visual media technology in the 21st century, because of it's increased emphasis particularly in the workplace.

   You may like to visit loonapix.com, I plan on using this website in my class to help edit images in order to make them more effective learning tools. I also enjoy looking through the PBS pdf on visual literacy where it gives specific lesson plans for subjects like, "Global Connections: The Middle East - Stereotypes: More Than Meets the Eye," one of particular interest to me personally. It provides a PBS website link of visual images and then provides a corresponding lesson plan. This are great useful tools for increasing the use of appropriate visual literacy in the classroom.

Thanks for reading :)

    I also wanted to mention that I loved watching this video from Ted Talks. It is by Dr. Aditi Shankardass who's neurological study on children with learning disorders revealed than many were actually misdiagnosed seizure disorder patients. Once properly re-diagnosed and treated, the children made monumental developmental milestones. It is pretty amazing what she's discovered.

    This is a powerpoint that I created in to teach my classroom rules during the first week of school. It's still a rough draft so I can edit it according to what class type I may teach, etc.

     I am most proud of teaching myself how to embed video content directly onto the Powerpoint. On mac it required an extra step: going to keepvid.com to embed and download the video on my computer first. Though I can still edit it, I wish I had created a comic strip on a slide to help illustrate the respect rule. I'm still trying to decide if it is easy enough to understand. I have not used it yet in the classroom,  but my 8-year-old sister seemed to enjoy it, saying "oooh" a lot. Probably, she's just impressed with my doing it, and I'm definitely planning on working to develop and improve this skill a lot more in the future! Thanks.

    Here, I've posted a worksheet that I like to call a "log-sheet." I used this for my after-school program students which I had four days a week. The goal of this worksheet was for children to track their activities and to self-assess their behaviors at the end of each day. The outcome was that children could also take home their sheets for parent to see and be made aware of web-based educational tools that they could encourage their students to use at home as curricular reinforcement. A lot of times, children would want to write down the websites I gave them so they could explore them more at home.

     I used iWork Pages '09 to create this at home because I don't have MS Publisher. I think things that made this an affective DTP product were the graphic organization to create a visually-organized impact. The use of some color and titling helps create some enthusiasm and clarity for completing the tasks at hand. The ability to repeat the box four times in one sheep, helps student visually predict. I also like the check-boxes to help simplify the self-tracking process for the kids. This is my first DTP project for school, so let me know if you have any suggestions! Thank you :)

   This website created by another education student, describes some uses of spreadsheets and databases in the classroom:

http://k8baker.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/spreadsheets-and-databases-in-the-classroom/

   I had never really thought about using a spreadsheet to track student data. I have used it to format my evaluation methods in the past, but this article got me thinking about using charts and data to track my own effectiveness as a teacher. I could create a flow chart where I monitor myself on each new concept that I teach. Allowing for variables, I could create an input coefficient for different teaching methods I may use to teach a given topic. I could then correlate my effectiveness based on my methods and resulting student scores and evaluations. Recently, after watching the documentary on education called, Waiting for Superman, I've been made aware that a teacher's successes based on student scores are always monitored by administrators. They are used to evaluate a teacher's ability, though the teacher may have little knowledge such methods. Therefore, why not use database software to stay one step ahead of the game, to set goals for oneself as an educator, and to always know where you stand and the progress you are making with your students.

   In the past, I've used databases and spreadsheets mainly for my own planning and inter-departmental purposes. However, after reading more about the uses of databases in schools, I thought about my use of "Kid's College" or "Dreambox,"  which are programs provided by my school, in which children complete quizzes and play games for scores, and an administrators have the ability to check periodically and see statistical evidence of progress or lack thereof. After reading more about the uses of spreadsheets and databases, I also thought about using them to teach children how to categorize, compare, add, subtract, use charts (like a pie chart to compare parts to a whole), and even to track their own progress.  I think it would be great to teach children from a young age how to input their own data into a program. This is one area of technology that has been difficult for me to learn, and has taken me a lot of time to acquire. It would have been great to have someone teach me how to use it from the start!

     This week I learned about new software which would be great for use in my classroom. Specifically, I loved finding out about pbworks.com because it provides a portal through which the classroom can be launched on an interactive level. I love the easy use of this technology, and the fact that everybody - including parents - can participate. I feel it is a great way to monitor, evaluate and demonstrate student progress. It is a great way to show pride in both student and teacher work. I also learned about the tikatok.com website which is another great tool to enforce literacy and a fun, creative and interactive way. The use of the podcast system was interesting. I am familiar with it's use at my own school, but only at the fifth grade level, and primarily as a media outlet for broadcast-journalism-type projects. It is interesting to know that a lot of questions need to be asked before implementing a podcast program. I was surprised to find out that the process of establishing such a program requires pretty thorough research on the part of the educator, or whoever is implementing the podcast in the school. A final great tool I learned about was the NETS standards for educators and students. These, I found, are really important to keep up-to-date with. My favorite aspect of the NETS standards, is that they aim to produce 'global citizens' or students are able to grow up to become adults who can actively participate in society, government and more, by being able to navigate technology and to integrate it into their everyday lives. As educators, through NETS we are made aware that using technology in our classroom gives students a portal by which to demonstrate and to expand their knowledge. The NETS standards challenge us to be up-to-date models of the ideal of technology use as a cross-curricular outlet for learning. Therefore, I'd like to make it a personal goal to meet all of these goals in my first two years of teaching. They are numerous, but they all emphasize the importance of using the latest technology to produce the best global citizens possible.
     I would like to put this new knowledge to immediate use by keeping all of these new tools available on my desktop and smartboard at all times, so that I remember to use them fluidly whenever possible in my lessons or during downtime. The main challenges I will face in using this technology is taking the time to establish the pbworks program, I therefore would make a timeline to help me establish it piece-by-piece before the school year starts. By the time the year starts, I should be fluid and comfortable enough implementing it in the classroom.