Prezi

So I was reading Betsy's blog, and she had a post about Prezi, so I looked into it.

Whoa.

This is a totally rad tool to make a classroom with technology super entertaining, engaging, and keep students learning as much as possible! You can make really cool presentations on Prezi.

Here's a Prezi I put together, not too special, but I think it's pretty cool:

Heidi's First Prezi on Prezi

Storyboard, Etc.

I will be doing a video for this project. Here are the Utah State core standards that the use of this video as a teacher will facilitate teaching:

grade 10 core standard 1
objective 3.
(Comprehension of Literary Text): Comprehend literature by recognizing the use of literary elements across genres and cultures.

1. Examine the relationship between oral and written narratives.

2. Understand the uses of character development in conveying theme in literary works.

3. Analyze themes in literature and their connection to politics, history, culture, and economics.

4. Evaluate setting as it contributes to characterization, plot, or theme.

5. Analyze the use of simile, metaphor, pun, irony, symbolism, allusion and personification.

6. Compare poetry on different topics from varied cultures and times.

Standard 2
(Writing): Students will write informational and literary text to reflect on and recreate experiences, report observations, and persuade others.
Objective 1
(Writing to Learn): Interpret and analyze ideas and perspectives to clarify thinking through writing.

1. Analyze varied ideas and opposing opinions.

2. Analyze facts, events, or ideas to create meaning.

3. Identify and analyze assumptions and perceptions by examining connections between texts, between texts and self, and between texts and different world connections.

A huge difficulty that English teachers face is the challenge of changing media, meaning, films as the dominant literature source now. This assignment will help us as a class explore and examine the differences between film and text. Some of the differences are innate, and important. Reading is still a worthwhile pursuit today (and so is watching films), but some students don't see a difference in watching a film and reading a text. So, we're going to hit it hard with some close examination.

Obviously this kind of exploration necessitates a multimedia presentation. We must watch the video(s) in order to examine it(/them).

This video will facilitate a comparison in the classroom of texts and film interpretations of the text. We will examine and discuss the assumptions and perceptions that were made by the film interpreters of the original text through class discussion and then I would assign a paper that the students will write individually about what they saw as differences between the texts. They then will decide, on their own, if this means that reading is obsolete, or still valuable.

STORYBOARD

1). The narration will be something like: "Why read? All the greatest books have already been turned into movies!"

and it will look something like this:

...but it'll look a lot neater, because there will be actual book covers and movie poster images.

2.) Next will be a narration saying: "One of the greatest books ever written, Pride and Prejudice, has been turned into film time and time again"

and then there will be something that looks a little like this:

3.) Then there will be a series of movie clips. I will first show the Kiera Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice, the proposal scene. Everyone loves that scene.

4.) Then I will have The Pride and Prejudice: a Latter-Day Tale version of the proposal scene.

5.) The I will have the Bride and Prejudice version of the proposal scene.

6.) Then I will have a simple screen that asks, "what are the similarities? Differences? How do these similatieis and differences affect meaning?

7.) Then the video will quote the actual text by Austen and discuss the similarities and differences, and why we think those interpretations chose to keep or change different lines, phrases, images, et cetera. There will be a non-intrusive song playing to keep it interesting.

8.) Then there will be a credit page, with music.

Dead Parents.

I found a link to this article in one of the blogs that I follow on google reader: "The Ol' Dead Dad Syndrome." In my YA lit class, we talked about what classifies and what characterizes a YA lit novel, and one of those common characteristics is dead parents -- whether it be one or both, there are lots of dead parents floating around in YA lit. Think of The Secret Garden, Harry Potter, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Hunger Games, or even stories as fundamental as Orphan Annie, or Anne of Green Gables, Cinderella or Jane Eyre. What do these all have in common? ORPHANS. If parents aren't dead, they oftentimes are conveniently out of the picture. Leila challenges readers and writers to both expect better story and character development and to create stories that are good as opposed to convenient-- maybe you need to have dead parents for the purposes of your writing (writing about death of a parent, writing about orphans, writing about foster care), but if it's in simple avoidance of the work required to create yet another character, Ms Sales calls it a "cop out."

I think this is fascinating! There's so much to do with this observation and opinion in a classroom. You could design an entire lesson plan or even smallish unit on this article:

1. Have students brainstorm books/stories that have dead and/or missing parents.

2. Ask them why they think that is, what functions could it serve, and then

3. Read the article as a class

4. and debate/discuss if Ms Sales is correct in her observation, and if they share her opinion, then

5. Write letters/emails to Leila Sales either telling her that you support/disagree or comment on the article as a class. then maybe you could

6. Write short stories that are YA-type stories that either involve parents or have dead parents, and then have students

7. Write an explanation about why they chose to include/exclude parents in their short story, and to what effect? and then you could even

8. Have students share their stories, explanations, and discuss the short stories as a class.

"A convenient story is not the same as a good story."

-Leila Sales, Author of the article

Mean Disney Girls (Copyright)

This is seriously so funny. It doesn't cite things like it should, and it uses more than 30 seconds of audio (though I'm not sure if this is different, because it is not a song, it is just movie audio, which it is less than 10% of, but still not cited).

At first, I thought, "this is sooooo not fair use," but then I remebered that parodies were permissible. I feel like this is a parody, or a critique on Mean Girls/Disney, in which case it would be permissible to use the audio/visual copyrighted material in this way.

Disney's Recycled Animation (Copyright)

Here is my first video for the copyright assignment. It's called "Disney's Recycled Animation." I thought it was an interesting use of fair use! I can't be sure how much is from each movie, and there was quite a bit from Snow White and Robin Hood, but the whole clip is 3 1/2 minutes, so I believe that no one movie was sourced more than 3 minutes worth. Also, it uses a song that is a free download, and it looks like a legitimate free download, too. The free download place is sourced in the video comment.

Finally, this is very much so a critique on Disney animation. I feel like I know something valuable by watching it: I had no idea that they could recycle animation, but boy do they ever.

The one problem that I see is that each Disney movie that has been used in this presentation has not been clearly sighted as far as I can tell.

Class Website

Here is my pretend class website:

https://sites.google.com/site/missbarnhartsenglishclasses/

Love and Logic

My classroom management teacher told us about this philosophy in management technique called "Love and Logic." I've done a little research on it, and here's the website to the company she was referring to:

http://www.loveandlogic.com/

You can follow them on twitter!

The philosophy is based on the goal of raising responsible children, and the company does seminars for both parents and educators. The concept is based on the philosophical writings of Charles S. Pierce, an American thinker and innovator.

In our class, she told us about four main skills that a teacher needs while managing a classroom:

1. Neutralize student arguing.

This is done mainly two ways:

A. Ignore the problem. Sometimes, students act out because they are seeking unhealthy attention. When they do not get it, they may stop.

B. Repeat a one-liner, like, "I know." During class, the main point is to keep the learning environment going. If a student is having personal problems, you can pull them aside later and talk with them.

2. Offer a choice.

Students are very aware of their peers, and want to save face more than anything. A confrontation with a teacher can be very embarrassing, especially if the student feels like they were not treated like an adult. Giving the student a choice is treating the student like an adult, so that they can chose to comply with the rules and procedures of the classroom without embarrassment (she didn't MAKE me stop, I CHOSE to stop!).

These choices should be two "reasonable and acceptable" choices. IE, when a student refuses to hand over a cell phone that has been used in class, the choices could be "either hand me the phone, or take the phone to the office."

3. Delayed consequences.

This is not a threat. It is a statement of fact, and a following through with that statement. When a student is disruptive, this skill can manifest as simply as telling them, "this is a problem. We'll deal with it later, but right now I'm teaching," or, "this is a problem. We'll talk later," and then taking them aside after class and discussing the problem with them.

4. Empathy.

Students are people, too. They deserve sincere empathy. They also deserve the right to be responsible for their actions, even when that responsibility entails negative consequences. When students are not held responsible for their words and actions, they are being given a great disservice.

Before telling students about the consequences to their actions, a teacher should extend their sincere, simple empathy. The student should be given choices when possible. The teacher can ask the student to state the consequences, to clarify that they understand. Show confidence in the student.

Grammar Wiki

Here is a class wiki for my Eng 329 (teaching grammar) class:

http://eng329ostenson.pbworks.com/

It is essentially a handbook of examples of different grammar structures. I bet it will be very useful for putting together lesson plans on grammar! Students will be able to learn what opening adverbs, absolute phrases, noun clauses, and others are from this site.