SL Weblog 3 12/7/2010

Last friday was my final day of service. Although I was excited to be coming to a conclusion with service, I was also sad. I enjoyed the time that I spent with these kids very much. We participated in numerous activities which had to do with sensory. Benjamin and Brandon really enjoyed playing with the silly putty and playing a game which involved racket balls. Throughout the semester the boys and I had a lot of fun together. Although I will not being seeing them again I hope they use the tools that I taught them and stay relaxed in class so that they are able to get their work done.

Essay Proposal Commentaries 11/30

Allison Merrill - Allison's essay proposal discussed the topic of standardized testing. I feel that that is a very important topic and one that needs to be discussed. The two questions that she addresses are also very important. I hope that she is able to find out valid information about this topic and come up with solid answers.

Andrew Costa - Andrew's essay proposal discussed Cleveland city schools. I feel that this a good topic. However, I feel that the topic may be hard to find articles on. If he is able to find good information from reliable articles then I feel that he could write a very good paper.

Catie Hodgson - Catie decided to discuss arts in education. I feel that because she decided to discuss the entire topic of arts it will be easier to find research articles that pertain to it. I also feel that she will be able to relate to the topic which will allow her to write a very good paper.

Blogger 6

Today for class we were all instructed to bring in a prop that reflected chapter 9. I decided to show my high schools course selection guide. I felt that this went along really with the section on page 352.

Essay on Grouping

The National Association for Gifted Children describes homogeneous grouping as “grouping students by need, ability, or interest.” Many children at schools all of the world are subjected to homogeneous grouping day and day out. Some children may be upset because they are not receiving the opportunity to show that they could do well with harder work, and some children may have the feeling of unworthiness because they are unable to keep up with the day to day class work. Our book that we have currently been reading, Teaching to Change the World, describes another type of grouping that may be more beneficial. This type of grouping is called heterogeneous grouping. Heterogeneous grouping would involve all types of students being in the same classroom no matter what their intellectual level may be. During this essay I will share with you an example of my past experiences dealing with homogeneous grouping and a classmates past experiences. I will also discuss the the perspective of our textbook, Teaching to Change the World.
During my grade schooling I was subjected to homogeneous grouping on numerous occasions. However, no occasion stands in mind as prominently as one did when I was in the second grade. A couple days of the week a teacher by the name of Mrs. Hamilton would come in to our class room and work with a selected few students. She would work with the students that were falling behind in the every day school work. She would do activities that looked fun and interesting. While she was doing all of these activities with students, the rest of the class got to sit in our desks and go over the lessons that the teacher had planned for that day. This was some what frustrating to me because I would much rather have been doing those fun activities instead of the boring math, science or reading that the rest of the class was doing.
Catie (whose homogeneous experience I will be sharing) was put through something similar, but on the other side of the spectrum. Five students were chosen from her class to go to an accelerated math program. Catie, however, was not one of the selected five students to join this program. She felt that she was not given the opportunity to show that she could succeed in that accelerated program.
Teaching to Change the World feels that more schools should implement heterogeneous grouping. I am not sure how I feel about this particular issue. I know that sometimes students may feel that they are not being challenged enough in the classroom. I also am aware that students sometimes feel that the class work is very demanding and difficult. However, I don’t know if it is necessary to split the two groups of children. I feel that it could possibly be beneficial if both the accelerated and the slower groups of children were paired together. Maybe the accelerated students could possibly help the slower children understand the concepts and the lesson of that day.
In today’s classroom we give the teachers an extreme amount of power. Teachers may have just as big of an impact on children as parents do. The teachers are the ones who get to decide whether or not the students are in accelerated programs or not. This could effect students self esteem and possibly hurt them in the long run. In conclusion I feel that after typing this essay I am more for heterogenous grouping. I feel that there are many positives that could come out of it and we as a community should do what we can to put it in to effect in our school systems.

State, By. "NAGC - Information & Resources - Glossary of Gifted Terms." NAGC :: Home. Web. 26 Oct. 2010. .

Essay Proposal Refletions

Andrew Costa: We were given limited information on Andrew's proposal. However, I felt that he rose a very good question and I think there will be a lot of available information on his topic.

Allison Merrill: Allison's proposal seemed very well written. She clearly let's us know the topic in which she is going to discuss through out her proposal. I really like the diversity aspect of her writing. Diversity is a very big aspect in today's education. There are many minorities in the United States and it is something that needs to be looked at. I feel that she will be able to find a substantial amount of information on her topic.

Caitlin Hodgson: Caitlin's proposal was very well written. I felt that she also brought up a very good question on how students and volunteers alike. I also liked how she brought up how teachers should be teaching in multiple ways. No student likes to learn many things the same way day in and day out. I would assume that there would be a lot of information on this topic and it will be easy to locate.

Feedback to support learning

I feel that having group give you feedback about writing projects is very helpful. It allows you to converse with fellow students about what could possibly changed. It also allows you to read over things to see if there are anythings that you feel may need to be changed in a fellow students paper. You are able to give suggestions without being rude and that could possibly help the student with grade and with future assignments.

SL Weblog 3

Do you feel that service learning is important for all age groups? Or do you feel that there is only a certain time period in ones life that they are able to be positively impacted by the benefits of service learning.

Do you feel that the service learning still has the same impact on the individual conducting the service even if they are being forced to do so? If so, do you feel that there is any positive outcome for the servicee or the child during service?

Do you feel that it is important to put past bad experiences behind you while conducting, but also using the past positive experiences to better your service experience?

Do you feel that traveling to a different country or region to conduct a service would be more beneficial than traveling to a near by school or other place of service in your home town?

Do you feel that it is important for the service to be diverse? For the servicee or individual in need?

Frist Service

Yesterday was the first communication I had with my group leader for service. She went over the dress code, where our assigned service location was, and what to expect. I will be going to a sensory room in Garity. My group leader gave me the impression that I would be working with young children. She mainly made it sound like I would be watching young children; somewhat like babysitting. There is only one other girl in my assigned my room. I am very excited to meet this kids. Hopefully, I can have a positive impact on some of their lives and bring smiles to their young faces.
The young children who will be at this place of learning will be under privileged and in need of a good roll model. I am very excited about this. I have a young brother Jacob, who is ten. I feel that played a very substantial roll in the raising and upbringing of him. I can only hope that I can also have a positive influence on some of these kids as well.
Although I am very excited for this upcoming experience, my group leader did raise a few questions when she was explaining what service may be like. She said that since the kids have had poor upbringings they some things that may make you uncomfortable, and if so, you should let the teacher know. I wonder if that will actually happen. Hopefully, since I have younger children, I will not be faced with a difficult situation like this.

Personal Information

My name is Jarod Artman. I was born in Ocalla, Florida. My primary e-mail address is jartman13@jcu.edu. Although, I was born in Ocalla, Florida, I lived most of my life in Ashtabula, Ohio. I am currently a sophomore at John Carroll University and love every minute of it. As an aspiring teacher I would enjoy teaching Physical Education. At least, that seemed to be my initial career choice. I am currently enrolled in an Anatomy class. The class is very intriguing and has made me consider wanting to teach something more related to that, but only time will tell. I play basketball at John Carroll and enjoy it a lot. One thing that most people don't know about me is that I have a tattoo on my right rib cage. It says "Strength does not come from physical capacity from indomitable will." Underneath the quote there is the date 7-1-2010. That specific date is the day that my grandfather passed away. I felt that that quote describes my grandfather very well. I use it as inspiration to make it through life's daily troubles. I feel comfortable sharing my intellect with just about anyone. The mind is a terrible thing to waste I feel that all people can have insightful opinions. I am a very talkative person. I enjoy talking in class when called upon and giving my input on topics. I attempt to come to every class and do my work on time, but as we all know, no is one a perfect and everyone has flaws. At the beginning of this school year I told myself that would do better at reading the assigned readings for class. I am honestly able to say that I have been doing very well.
When I attempt to think of my school memories I always think about the fun times that I had with friends while walking through the halls of my old high school. I feel that some issues with the education field is the determination and the passion that the teachers have. Many students become teachers because they feel that it is an easy profession. I hope to be passionate and exciting for my future students. In this class we need to share ideas about teaching and discuss our different teaching styles. We need to avoid hostility towards one another and be a class, we need to be open to new ideas and opinions.

Webquest Proposal

Date: 4/27/10

Teacher(s) Name: Dr. Shutkin

E-Mail Address(es): ocoughlin13@jcu.edu, jartman13@jcu.edu, jgerrick13@jcu.edu

Grade Level(s): Geared toward middle school students, but could be applicable to high school

Title of WebQuest: Breaking the Cleveland Curse

Content Areas: Math, Physical Education, English (to a lesser extent)

Description/Abstract of Lesson: The student plays the role of a Cleveland Cavaliers statistician, assisting Mike Brown in putting together his most effective groups of players to play in the fourth quarter, based solely on their statistics.

Timeline of Lesson: Three days

Introduction

With the NBA playoffs beginning, the Cleveland Cavaliers decided to hire a new statistician to assist Coach Mike Brown in deciding what combinations of players throughout the playoff games will suit the team best, based solely on their regular season statistics from the 09-10 season. It is important to consider that all players need breathers, the game covers 48 minutes, so not everyone will be able to play the entire fourth quarter, and every player has a specific role on the team. The entire city of Cleveland is counting on a championship this season, so you need to do everything you can to make it happen!

Task

The Cleveland Cavaliers need our help! Cleveland Cavaliers player’s names will be drawn out of hat for fairness to all students. Use the techniques that we have learned during the year to calculate the players fourth quarter averages. Coach Mike Brown wants to know what players he needs to play, but more importantly what players to play during crunch time. So as the new statisticians for the Cleveland Cavaliers, we have been assigned to figure out points per fourth quarter, assists per fourth quarter, rebounds per fourth quarter and turnovers per fourth quarter. After you have determined all of the statistics for the players you must set up a starting roster and then times for substitutions. Let's Go Cleveland!

Resources

Statistics

http://www.nba.com/cavaliers/stats/

Statistics for each member of the Cavs for the 09-10 playoffs.

[U.P] LeBron James 56 Points Vs Toronto Raptors (03.20.2005) (Career High)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEMtf1ppGJg

Video on Lebron James Career high

Cleveland Cavaliers Statistics - 2009-10

http://espn.go.com/nba/teams/stats?team=cle

Cleveland Cavaliers 09-10 regular season stats

Cavstheblog

http://www.cavstheblog.com/?p=1300

A blog that shows statistics for all teams as well as how it is explained

Cleveland Cavaliers

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2009/05/lebron_james_historic_mvp_seas.html

Cleveland's Plain Dealer online website giving Lebron James' stats for the 09-10 season

Learners

This WebQuest is geared toward middle school students in the content areas of math and physical education, and also language arts to a lesser extent. Students may need to acquire a general knowledge of basketball if they do not have one already. It is important for them to understand how points are scored, what rebounds are, what assists are, and what turnovers are.

The Ideal Learning Enviornment

When I think about what local means to me as a pre-service teacher, many things came to mind. Many places like John Carroll's campus, Lake Erie, Quicken Loans Arena, and the big city and all its surrounding suburbs. The one thing that all of these things have in common, Cleveland. As you may know I was born in Florida, but I have lived in Northeastern Ohio all of my life, so only being an hour away it has been easy to relate to Cleveland. Many major sports figures or even their fans usually dislike Cleveland because it is not one of your gigantic cities. But I feel that to truly respect and I believe in the city you have to be close to for a little while. One of the reasons as to why I enjoy Cleveland and all of Northeastern Ohio is because of Lake Erie, now obviously everyone knows about it once being the "Dead Lake" but it has come a long way. While Lake Erie still may not be the cleanest water you'll find, things have certainly improved greatly. Any day you can go to one of the multiple beaches and see numerous people sitting and relaxing underneath the summer sun. There are numerous things that can be learned from our natural fresh water source. I would extremely support learning about ecosystems and other scientific things through the use of Lake Erie. The possibilities are endless for the things that students could learn through thoroughly studying our fresh ware source.

Group Experience

During our group experience we discussed the "What You Think About Technology" survey. I agreed with almost all of the statements expect for two. As a group we shared our stories about how we felt technology made some type of work easier. We all felt that technology made some type of project or work that we were assigned easier. Our example that we used was about Jim who had an accounting class. During his accounting class Microsoft Excell was one of the main tools that was used. Excell made his accounting experience much easier.

H-Dub 2-23

I agree with Nye's narrative and beliefs of the advancement of technology. During the argument he describes how each possible tool that we use could influence a different story. I fine this to be a very true and interesting point. We use tools in our every day life. The use of tools simplifies a task at hand. MOst times we are able to use one or more of our tools to solve or overcome our problem. But by choosing a particular tool you influence the layout of your day, week, month or even years to come. I believe that technology is an amazing thing. Organisms have been using tools (which are classified as technology) ever since the dawn of time. However, I do not believe that it is only humans, or prime apes that only use tools; animals that are not as advanced use tools every day sucj asbirds, ants, elephants, giraffes and many other animals. Although these animals may not actually grasp something and use it to make a task easier, they are equipped with the tools that make their day to day life easier.

So as yoiu can see many organisms use tools throughout their day to day lives. They may be equipped with these tools at birth, or they may have to find or make them on their own. However, they are still tools so it is still technology. As species continue to evolve we can expect that the use of technology will evolve along with it.

H-Dub 2-16

For this weblog we were asked to find five Web 2.0 applications for our website that we are creating for a teacher. These are the websites that I picked out:

http://engrade.com/
Is an online grade book. It allows the students to look at the grades that they are recieving for the particular class. I really feel that this Web 2.0 will be extremely helpful to save time for the teacher and to let the students where they are in the class.
http://busylissy.com/en/
Busylissy is an online organizer for group projects. It allows you to organize information and communicate with your other group partners.
http://www.notemesh.com/notemesh.php?a=login
Notmesh is an online note app. This allows mulitple students or even the teacher to place the notes from a previous class online. Students can also discuss topics through this site.
http://www.fluther.com/
Fluther allows students to ask experts a variety of questions to experts or even other students. I feel that this would be helpful to many students. It can also be used for other classes besides the one that I am making the website for.
http://www.myhappyplanet.com/
My Happy Planet allows the student to communicate with foreign students. I feel that this app will help speed up the developement of their foreign language skills.
http://www.lectr.com/
Lectr is an online lecture. Professors are able to upload their previous lectures online so that if students missed they are able to see the lecture. Or, if the professor is unable to attend the class for some reason he/she can just assign the lecture to be watched for class.

I feel that these six Web 2.0 applications will be most beneficial to students in any spanish class.

H-Dub 2-9

For this weblog I was assigned to interview a couple of friends and discuss what they feel would make a good course website. I interviewed a couple of friends, Mike, Kenny, and Paul. All of these students are in my Spanish 102 class. All of their responses included the following; the website should include their grades that they have recieved throughout the semester for homework, projects, and quizzes. Future and present homework assignments along with there due dates. The website should also include test dates along with the information that should be gone over to prepare for the test. If the teacher feels that they would allow extra credit, then the extra credit and the credentials should be included in the website. The office hours and contact information of the Professor should be easily and clearly posted on the website for easy access. There should also be the information about the course. Things that will be gone over and discussed thourghout the entire semester. I feel that if all of these things were included in to a website then the semester would go along easier and more smoothly for the Professor and all of his/her students.

H-Dub: 2-2

As a university student, what range of Web 2.0 applications integrated into a professor’s course web site would best facilitate your learning? What are your goals? What are your learning and studying needs? How best to facilitate communications with your professor and with other students in class?

I personally feel that it is most beneficial to incorporate some type of organizer. I feel that that that is one of my biggest issues. I have so much homework and so many activities I sometimes lose track of time or things that i need to do. My goals are to put forth a good effort in the class and do my best to succeed. A lot of times when i need to study or get work done I will go some where to do it alone. However, while im doing homework I enjoy listening to music. A lot of times if I need help in class I will contact a fellow student or my teacher to recieve help.

My First Wordle!

Some H-Dub for Education

Personal information
1. Name, hometown, primary email.
Soo my name is Jarod Artman. I was actually born in Ocalla, Florida but I've lived in Ohio for about 14 years. My primary e-mail is jartman13@jcu.edu
2. What name do you prefer to be called?
My cell phone is literally ALWAYS on. Like most teenagers I don't really know what I would do with out it!
3. Grade level and subject(s) that you want to teach (For graduate students: undergraduate and graduate degree(s), education license(s), current employment: grade level, subject(s) if applicable, district).
This is my first year at JCU and I really enjoy it. I'm not exactly sure what grade I want to teach yet. but its in the middle school to high school range. I'm almost positive I want to teach physical education.
4. What are you into; what makes you special? Share a few “unique” aspects about yourself that would help our classroom community get to know you a bit better.
I play basketball here at John Carroll, and i really love to make peolpe laugh. I am always down for a good joke or just to have a good time.

Learning Style and more:
5. Being as specific as you can, what must be in place for you to feel comfortable taking intellectual and creative risks in a classroom?
I am always ready to take a risk or try something new. You only live once right?
6. I am interested in your perception of yourself as a student. Please describe it. Consider such criteria as a) active oral class participation; b) responsible, timely class preparation (of readings, projects, etc.); c) honest, candid self-assessment; d) awareness of your own preferred learning styles/approaches; e) first thing that you do when you cannot or do not understand something; f)other dimensions you believe to be relevant and informative.
I am always willing to particpate in the classroom. I like being able to show off my intelligence. Even if it is only once or twice a period. lol I am usually on time to class. If I do not understand a question or an assignment I will usually ask for help.
7. Is there anything I should know about you, your learning style, or life situation that may be relevant to your successful performance in this course? (Please decide what to share with the class and what to share in confidence with me).
Nothing that I can think of.

Technology Section
8. What do you believe was the most important technological invention in history? Why?
The internet. I feel this way because it has allowed us to communicate and relay information faster than we ever imagined. Also, by putting information on the internet you are saving paper which in turn helps the enviorment.
9. Please list a number of technologies you currently believe to be essential to your life. Star (*) those you (tend to) believe to be insufficiently promoted in education.
1-Cell Phone
2-Laptop*
3-Flashdrive*
4-Printer*
5-Internet*
6-Electricity*
10. In relation to technology, please describe what life is like for you after a typical school day?
Depending on what time I have class I usually get up about 10 to fifteen minutes before class, then walk to class. After my classes are done I will usually get lunch and then go take a nap before practice. I will then get up and go to practice. After practice is over I will get some dinner and then come back to room and do some how work if I have any. Then I will just go hang out with friends until I get tired and go to bed.
11. Indicate any uses of technology that you believe tend to be inappropriate or used excessively (by children in or out of school, by teachers in or out of school ) or promoted excessively (by the media, the computer industry, schools), i.e. ones that should be restricted or regulated in key ways.
I feel that technology was created for us to use in the assistance of our every day activites. So I think that we should be able to use technology to the best of our abilities.
12. Let’s imagine, humbly, that this course is definitely going to be the most meaningful and relevant educational technology course you’ve ever experienced. EVER. Drawing on your past experience in classrooms, and thinking uniquely, specifically and BIG, describe what we need to (1) DO (activities/projects), (2) STUDY (content topics and compelling issues/questions), (3) BE (interacting with each other) and (4) AVOID (in the previous three categories) in order for your visionary views of an ideal course to be mostly realized.
I feel that we should just go over all of the technology that is being used in the class room today. Then I think we should go over the technology that we feel should or could be used in the class room.