My contribution to the WebQuest wiki

I contributed three links of Civil War WebQuests that I found to be very useful examples of what a successful WebQuest should be.

http://www.stonewall.fayette.k12.ky.us/wq/cwwebquest/civilwar.htm
I found this WebQuest to be very valuable resource for the fancy graphics and transitions while still maintaining good content.

http://www.sdst.org/shs/library/civilwarwq.html
This WebQuest is awesome because of the content and the way it is laid out. I especially liked the task description for its depth.

http://students.umf.maine.edu/~pendlecv/Civil%20War%20Webquest/
I found this WebQuest useful because it is an example of a UMF student and what is expected of the WebQuest that we created.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 10: Going Beyond The Classroom

Steering students towards summer programs and enrichment programs is a great thing to do as a teacher.

It creates a bond with the student that does not cross boundaries. I saw this in Mt. Blue when Mr. St. Onge was encouraging the students to participate in Boy/Girl State and also various sports and sporting camps.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong

The thing that struck me in this chapter is the part about the teacher having a bad day and how to effectively do their job regardless.

I think that this is important because you should be able to have a bad day or feel sick but still be able to perform your job. It is important that you seem human to your students and not be a superhero but it is ok to have a bad day as a teacher.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 8: Teaching Tennagers Who Are Still Learning English

The section about building bridges is insane because I was looking for a resource like this.

I have a girl from Vietnam in one of my classes and she understands and is able to speak English pretty well but it is hard to connect with her. One way that we did it was to teach her about the NCAA March Madness Tourney which turned out to be awesome because it connected her with the other kids in the class.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 7: Teaching Difficult Academic Material

"Don't leave students to learn entirely on their own."

This part struck me because what are teachers supposed to do. They aren't supposed to leave the learning to the students they are supposed to teach. They are supposed to teach the material and help students learn. It surprises me that students would have the experience of a teacher leaving them to learn the material on their own.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 6: Motivation and Boredom

Keeping the students on top of their workload is very important for motivation.

Mr. St. Onge was a stickler for keeping the students focused on their workload especially for students who missed class. That is why this part jumped out at me because the students did not seem happy that he kept on top of them but the students who wrote this book were.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 5: Teaching to the Individual, Working with the Group

I really connected with the beginning of this chapter when the students described the types of students in a class.

I connected with this passage because it made me wonder what type of student I was in high school. I came up with the fact that I was a hybrid of a wallflower and a dreamer. It wasn't really anxiety that was keeping me from raising my hand but rather apathy.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 4: Creating a Culture of Success

The part in this chapter that I liked was when Latia was talking about how when certain students get labeled as the ones that participate, nobody benefits.

I feel that this is important because it applies to the classroom. When only a few are giving answers everyone else is left out of the class and then no one is learning anything. It is unfair to the class and the student.

Fires in the Bathroom Chapter 3: Classroom Behavior

The one thing that struck me in this chapter was the part about keeping student learning as the top priority.

I liked this part because in my classroom at Mt. Blue that was the main goal and my mentor teacher did a good job of staying on task. In some of our classes the students were not interested in learning but rather talking about in appropriate things and Mr. St. Onge made it clear that the focus and purpose of his classroom was learning.

Copyright and Fair Use LR

Question 18 deals with the use of music in a presentation and the length that is allowed. The problem with using music in presentations is the royalty fees that are associated with the copyright and fair use of music. It boils down in my mind to greed. If a student wants to use popular music in a presentation that is not being distributed and the music was found in a legitimate way then they should be able to use as much as they want as long as they give credit at the end of their presentation. It is kind of stupid that musicians are greedy enough to want royalty fees for everything. Through the distribution of their music they can actually gain more money because who is to say that a student hearing the music in a class presentation is not going to go buy their music and also the license that you get to listen to the music if you get it legitimately should cover using it in a presentation without distributing the music afterword. 

Copyright and Fair Use SR

Question 6 surprised me because I thought that it would be infringement if you use the images and materials without giving credit. 

Question 9 also was surprising because MP3.com has free downloads and I did not realize they came with legit copyrights and such.

Question 12 allowance of teachers using materials from movies and such for educational uses is an exception to the copyright law that I didn't understand. I didn't understand because there are programs that can lift the copyright off of DVD's so I don't understand if that is legit for teachers.

Question 16 answered my questions raised in question 12 and does not make sense to me because those programs are being blocked by the government but are permissible for certain people. 

Question 17 raises some concern with me because I don't think it is right that people can use my image online without my knowledge and that is permissible.

Question 19 shocked me because the fair use laws on music are the toughest ones and a video yearbook is just a way for people to keep their memories so it should be eligible for exemption.

Question 1 should not be a problem. If a person pays a lot of money for a program they should be allowed to create a back up copy of the program for themselves in case of an emergency. However, if it is found they are sharing their program without proper licenses they should be taken to court for a lot of money. 

Question 2 should be true. Unless the school system can guarantee that it is being used properly then they should have to buy additional licenses. They shouldn't have to buy new programs and such but at least licenses that allow them to use it multiple times off the same server. 

Creativity Exercises

I exercised my right brain today by doing watching SportsCenter today and learning the stats that Roger Clemens had during his career and watching him before the Senate Committee. I exercised my left brain by helping develop a cryptogram based on a Ronald Reagan quote and then solving it. During the snow day I also listened to stories from some of my friends. Actually one of the was a humorous anecdote about people watching at Union Station in DC while the other was about how Mike Huckabee was talking about how inspiration is the reason why he is staying in the election race. These helped my creativity by giving me ideas, ideas for running for office and also ideas for the classroom and what a role model should be.

How to help someone use a computer

The one thing that I have to tell myself when I am helping someone use a computer, "If it's not obvious to them, it's not obvious." The one rule I will probably follow is, "Don't take the keyboard. Let them do all the typing, even if it's slower that way, and even if you have to point them to every key they need to type. That's the only way they're going to learn from the interaction." These stood out to me because I have those same two problems all the time when I am teaching my step dad how to do things on the computer. It is comical to watch because everything I am teaching him is obvious and I can do and then I watch him struggle and get frustrated.

After reading that article I can use those ideas to keep myself in line and realize that the students won't know until they know.

Ideas were borrowed from the following article: http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/how-to-help.html

Focus the Nation

I decided to look at the facts that were presented on the Focus the Nation website. And I found the following to be very interesting:

• Greehouse gas emissions need to be reduced to stop global warming
• Global warming is more than just an enviornmental issue it is a social/global issue
• The students who are in school now are the ones that can affect the future

To help my students face the issue of global warming I would have to research the position more, I personally believe the global warming is a myth. However, in order to present my students with the facts I would have to look beyond my personal beliefs and implement scientific facts. I would also welcome students to plan and participate in a national day like the one that took place on January 31, 2008.

Web 2.0 Educator

I picked Wes Fryer because he seems to be the most advanced in his field of blogging and teaching with technology. Wes' specialty is being on the cutting edge of technology and its integration into the classroom. In his blog he attaches mp3's, weblinks and also podcasts. I think that Wes' integration of technology in the classroom shows his knowledge of it. With going to conferences and judging other ideas and also presenting his own ideas. I think that Wes' ideas are good and are the best ones that I have seen.

Type I and Type II Technology

Type I technology is simply a use of technology in the classroom where most of the results are predetermined. An example of Type I technology are rudimentary applications that teach spelling or the home row keys. A few more examples of Type I technology would be a PowerPoint that is simply giving the information to the students in the classroom, also it could simply be a web quest in which all the information is provided and the user must go along with it to find the solution.

Type II technology is a lot more user integrated. This is the technology in which the outcome is determined by the input of the user instead of being predetermined by the programmer. A few examples of Type II technology would be the drunk driving simulator that I did at an open house for a college, or creating a historical documentary on the computer using iMovie, it could also be making a website to convey the ideas of a certain subject matter in an abstract way.


Maddux, Cleborne D., & Johnson, D. Lamont (2005). Introduction. Type II Applications of Technology in Education: New and Better Ways of Teaching and Learning.

My MEL Experiences

• Student/Teacher Relationship: Some of the best learning that I achieved has been with teachers that I feel that I connect with on a level outside of class. In high school it was my football coach who also taught U.S. Government and International Relations. I felt that we could talk about things outside of class and connected with him on more things than just what was happening in class and the curriculum that was being taught. His teaching style was also conducive to my learning style, he was very straightforward and had his expectations goals clearly defined at the beginning of each class.
• Interests: Another aspect of the Meaningful Engaged Learning was adapting to students’ interests. When discussing the founding of our nation and the writing of the constitution, my high school teacher from above adapted to our interests. In our class we had mostly people who were in sports and so he discussed the trades made by styling it like an ESPN story and the trade block that they have on SportsCenter. It was a really effective tool to show what each side was getting in the compromises that were made when writing the constitution.
• Avoid Rewards: The extrinsic rewards in education never help out the more applied students and only serve to hurt the unmotivated and semi-motivated students. In school I was always semi-motivated to achieve good grades and do well in school but when that work was never rewarded it had a negative impact on my attitude towards learning. It made me not want to try because I did not see the point if rewards were giving out to the same students over and over again.
• Connections: It is important to connect subject matter in the classroom to things that are happening in other classes or in current events. This gives the subject matter meaning to the students and gives them a way to apply what they have learned. In English class during high school we used to do current events while doing a unit on journalistic writing. This was helpful because it showed that we could write about subject matter that was happening in the world and helped connect the students to current events.
• Hands-On: My example of hands-on learning was an internship that I did in high school where I worked in a classroom of my peers and helped a teacher teach math. The hands-on experience helped me in two ways. It solidified my choice to study teaching and pursue it as a career. It also helped me decided that I could never teach math to high school students. Another aspect that helped was that it was a class of underachieving students and I learned a lot about confidentiality and also helping the unmotivated student.
  
  

Learning Style Inventory Results

These results brought to you by learning-styles-online.com, are extremely accurate. I am a very social and interpersonal person that likes to be around people. I am much more of a verbal social person rather than relying on logical, physical, or visual solutions. I am the type of person that will talk the problem out with a person or by myself to understand and solve it better.

Chapter 2: Respect, Liking, Trust and Fairness

Chapter 2 deals more with the feelings of the students in their learning environment and what the teacher can do to help the students' learning atmosphere. The one thing that stood out was the part about the students worrying about teachers betraying their confidence. The ability for students to trust their teacher is one that cannot ever be lost because you cannot gain it again.

This part surprised me because I could not think of a time when a teacher could break confidentiality except for in the case where the student was in immediate danger and needed more help than the teacher could offer. I feel that the students need to understand that in coming to a teacher confidentiality is respected but there is a point where safety is more of a concern than confidentiality, in those cases the student must understand that the teacher is not betraying them but helping them. The passage surprised me because of the students feelings that their confidentiality would be broken with the teachers.

Chapter 1: Knowing Students Well

The first thing that jumped out at me in Chapter 1 of Fires in the Bathroom was the idea of doing a student questionnaire to get to know the students better. I think that this is the best method for getting to know the students in a timely manner. The journal option is a good one but is drawn out throughout the semester that you have the student.

The questionnaire is a structured response that has less to do with feelings and more to do with facts. The most effective way to get to know a student is to pay attention to them and using the questionnaire is a good "ice breaker," while the journal helps with dealing with current issues in a student's life. I feel that a combination of both would be the best way to know a student and their tendencies and attitudes towards learning. I also like the part of being honest with the students about the teacher's life. Knowing somethings about teachers in high school helped me relate more to them and feel comfortable in talking with them.