Web 2.0 Educator

The blog I chose is written by Dan Meyer and called "dy/dan". This teacher seems to be blogging about his experiences as a math teacher. It would be my guess that he teaches a middle school or high school level judging by the student experiences he includes in his blogs. It was really interesting to read his blogs because he has a sarcastic tone to his writing that made me laugh quite a bit. His entries are entertaining so it was easy to get through the first couple pages of them, rather than only four. Dan didn't seem to talk too much about technology in his classroom, he spoke more of technique and strategy. This blog was voted best new blog, and I agreed with the choice because it was definitely fun to read!

Type I and Type II Technology

The instruments or tools classified as Type I are not new inventions or technologies, they are simply tools that help to sustain the learning that has always occurred in the classroom. This is to help teach the same subjects and concepts that have always been taught in schools, but not necessarily to progress those concepts.Some examples of Type I technologies are:
- Typewriter
- SMARTboards
- Graphing Calculator for traditional math rather than graphing
Type II Technology is actually using new products or old products in new ways to make progress in learning. This Type promotes new ideas and ways of presenting information, it’s all about being innovative. Some examples of Type II technologies are:
- Use of internet pages solely for class work (i.e. wikis, blogs, etc.)
- Advanced computer programs such as Word that edit work
- Using a graphing calculator for graphing

Citation:
Maddux, Cleborne D., Johnson, D. Lamont. "Type II Applications of Technology in Education: New and Better Ways of Teaching and Learning". 2005, Haworth Press Inc.
Available at: http://www.haworthpress.com/web/CITS

My MEL Experiences

• Student/Teacher Relationship (Environment): One of my high school experiences consisted of an English teacher who really disliked me. I am unsure still of what exactly I did to create her negative feelings towards me, but she really treated me differently from the rest of the class. When I would turn in work, especially papers or reports she would grade them differently than the rest of the class, giving me lower grades for my best work than my other 3 alternate English teachers had given for my best work. I am still unsure of why my grades were not as high as usual, I wonder if she disliked my writing style. I would ask other teachers for assistance on my work when she would refuse to explain her grading. No matter what the result of my grades in the class, or the help I received from the other teachers, I did not have a good experience in this particular teacher's class. She discouraged me from my own writing, making me feel it was inadequate when all of my previous teachers (and teachers after her) had praised me for my individual styles. The environment was not one that I benefited from or enjoyed, therefore discouraging my learning.
• Hands On (Experience): Another important learning experience for me was during my senior year I took two different classes with the same teacher that promoted learning from hands on and experimental work. One class was a cooking class and the other an interior decorating class. Both classes had a very structured curriculum, but were designed for the students to learn by doing rather than constantly studying books. That year I learned many different skills in both classes that I still use in everyday life and have yet to forget. This type of learning embedded the important ideas into my mind, therefore keeping the facts with me for this long. The hands on experience forced me to learn the patterns of the work rather than just the words and written directions. Physically experiencing the process helped me completely understand the subjects I was studying.
• Learning Styles (Experience): Varying the types of learning in classrooms not only keeps students engaged, but it creates a blanket for all the different learning types in the classroom. One of my best ways of learning is not only hands on, but it is anything in relation to the Spacial Intelligence. This type of intelligence gives me a decent ability to be creative, but productive and interpret things in more artsy ways. Throughout high school I would excel in any classes that gave me a chance to branch out and do a project with extra detail on the presentation, the designing parts of projects, or even direct relation to art, such as photography. Getting a chance to go outside and visualize pictures with the elements of rule of thirds or leading lines gave me the opportunity to memorize everything I needed to memorize in the class, but also see and experience the concept while designing a beautiful picture. It was another way of learning that incorporated different intelligences and promoted my memory of the written work.
• Autonomy (Motivation): The concepts of planning, designing, and creating have become more and more important to me as I have gone through school. In high school is where I learned the basis of these important tools. Receiving a syllabus in any class helps achieve a general sense of what to expect and how to plan ahead for the class. I find this tool always incredibly helpful in the learning process because it gives students the chance to focus on certain tasks and in a certain order. I also had one teacher that would have a board full of upcoming assignments and events that he would remind us to check each class. This gave us a chance to stay on top of our assignments with a little push from the teacher, but the feeling that we were succeeding independently also.
• Context (Meaning): Also in my senior year I took this one class that was called "Future Perspectives". I remember this class as one of the most valuable classes I took all through high school. As a segway into life after high school this class taught the students about budgeting, student loans, job interviewing, professional resume and letter writing, and any other general knowledge about surviving with or without a college education. Every single class I learned something that was meaningful and applied to my life. After that class I was confident that the things in life that looked so difficult and complicated that I was bound to come upon, were not so bad and I was old enough and mature enough to handle them. This teacher was understanding, helpful, caring, and compassionate. She taught us how to be adults in a way and it was definitely a class I would recommend to any high school student because it was truly motivating and an excellent preparation for the real world.

Chapter 1: Knowing Students Well

Reading through chapter one in Fires in the Bathroom one particular passage caught my attention. One student wrote "Just because I live in Harlem doesn't mean my brother sells drugs, I like in a crack-abandoned building, or I'm on welfare. Someone I know comes to my apartment and says, "Wow, I didn't know you lived in a place like this," because the house is clean." - Alexis (6)
This student makes a very valid point about teachers and stereotypes; though its not easy to ask questions about the student's background, it is also completely unfair to assume or categorize. She is simply stating that the stereotypes are not necessarily true and she would like to be considered as her own person rather than grouped with those who are completely unlike her and her family.
This point is incredibly valuable. It caught me off guard because I wasn't expecting a quotation so blunt and straight forward, but it is a fact that teachers need to be reminded of. I need to develop the skills of getting to know my students in a fashion that is not intruding on them personally, but gives me the chance to understand the student and the actions of him/her. I feel like this will benefit my learning of strategies for getting to know my students.

Chapter 2: Respect, Liking, Trust, and Fairness

One thing from this particular reading that jumped out at me was Mika's comments on page 19. Mika explained,
"It's OK if kids hate you at first. If you care about your teaching, we'll get past that. We're not going to be receptive to someone so quickly - we're kind of young in our thinking."
This basically made it clear that students are relatively forgiving, but have immature thinking. So if I am strict in my classroom, they will get used to it, and get over it, and like me because I care about my teaching. This is more of an achievement compared to being liked because I am nice, lenient, and an easy teacher. This surprised me because I thought the majority of high school/middle school students were more into having fun with there teachers and having no homework. She states that the students are young and have immature thinking; I would possibly disagree because if they care about their teacher quality, that seems to me to be a very mature step into the right direction.

This piece really helped me ease my worries of where the line is for being nice and having your students like you, or being strict and having them all dislike you. After reading this comment, and others similar to it, I realized what the children respect is the teacher knowing their content area and caring about it and the way its being understood by the students. Being liked has suddenly become less of a priority. I would much rather be respected in my classroom than liked, respect promotes success, the strong teacher-student relationships will develop if we have shared respect.

Learning Style Inventory Results

Style Scores:
Visual -11
Social -15
Physical -12
Aural -16
Verbal -8
Solitary -9
Logical -5

These were my scores for the MEL learning styles survey. These scores seem a little different from what we went over in class with Grace this morning, but seem somewhat accurate. I do have higher skills in visual and social, which is relatively alike to my in class results. It seems to be pretty accurate!