2019-20 ... and Still Ticking

And BOOOOOM ...the challenge is on to my classes in 2919-20. Since you creepered me enough to find this old blog, first person to get to me with the type of poetic device used in this paragraph just might get some extra credit.
Ready, set ... GO!

Back again ... and maybe again

Whoa!
Nothing like walking through your classroom of researching students and seeing one of them pull up your old blog.
Guess it is time to post a new entry (actually, I should post all of the time just to keep my hand in the game, but ...)
However, it's late, my grocery list is long, and my sleep for the last several nights is lacking.
So it is time to go.
But ... if any of my current 2018-19 students have read this deep into what certainly looks like a boring platitude ... you have a chance for extra credit. First student to get to me with what type of poetic device I used in the previous paragraph can earn 2 additional points.
Ready, set ... go!

Long Time, No See

I am not even sure this will work. Through the glory of a Google search. I stumbled across something older that I had written, which led me back to this blog that I had started back in Xavier tech days. Since that time, I have received my teaching certificate and have been teaching English in Fairfield for a quite a few years ... long enough that I have finished with the !#&*#%!# RESA.
Now that I have enough experimental text, let us see if it will post (and if anyone from back then will even still notice!)

Educational Philosophy

I have to post my "Educational Philosophy" on my Xavier Web page. Here is what I wrote:


    Communication.

    No matter what your education, no matter what your occupation, no matter what your economic status, there will come a time when it will be necessary to communicate with other human beings. You will need to make your messages clear. You will have to understand their messages. Both sides will have to take action based upon how well each party communicates those messages.

    My job – as a teacher – is to help facilitate that communication.

    I am the gatekeeper to a world of understanding.

Web sites for teachers

Greetings, 

     I had to gather these together for my web page, so I thought I would share them. Here are a few handy links for the budding language arts teacher (a few, such as refdesk.com and elizabethan.org, are good for other teaching fields, too):

Grammar Girl

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/

Refdesk.com

http://refdesk.com

The Subversive Copy Editor

http://www.subversivecopyeditor.com/

Oxford English Dictionary

http://www.oed.com (needs personal, school or library subscription)

Web English Teacher

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/

Edutopia

http://www.edutopia.org

National Council of Teachers of English

http://www.ncte.org/

Newspapers in Education

http://nieonline.com/

William Shakespeare

http://www.william-shakespeare.info/

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/

Renaissance: The Elizabethan World

http://www.elizabethan.org/

Famous Poets and Poems

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/

Screencast: How to Use Keepvid.com to Download YouTube Videos

     Here is a screencast that I created using Smart Recorder (the recording device that comes with SmartBoard) on how to download YouTube videos to your desktop using a Website called keepvid.com. This is a useful tool for teachers who work in a district that does not allow direct links to video websites, or for having a video already on your desktop on days when the network is down and Internet access is impossible.
     This example uses a video that I created myself for YouTube. Within the screencast, I included typed instructions that can be used by doing a freeze frame of the screencast. I have also included these instructions in this post. I hope these instructions prove to be of use to anyone in our class (or to anyone else who stumbles across this blog, for that matter!).

Steps for using keepvid.com

1. Find a YouTube video that you want to download to your computer for educational purposes from www.youtube.com. (Today we will look for one that I have uploaded for practice.)

2. Try to find one that is of fairly high quality. There is a search function that may bring up multiple versions of the same video.

(Today, for practice, use these keywords: SchoolOfBraam. Xavier, Jackson, Tech, keepvid.com

Title: Xavier Practice Video for downloading)

3. Once you have found the video you want, copy the URL address of the video (the URL address can be found at the top of Web browser and usually begins with www) by defining the address and using either Control C on your keyboard or by right-clicking and then clicking on Copy.

4. Open a new tab. Type in the Web address  keepvid.com and hit return.

5. At the top of the window, there is a space that says URL: Enter the URL of video page here. Click inside this space, then either type Control V from your keyboard, or right click and then click on Paste.

(Today the practice video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLkV8SGF5RA)

6. Click on Download.

7. If you get a box asking if you wish to run the program, click on “run.”

8.You should get several options for downloading. If you want to use the video version, click on and download the MP4 or FLV version to a folder (to help keep you organized). If you want audio only, download MP3.

9. You are done! You have downloaded a video for use in the classroom for either embedding into an exercise, or for those days when a link is either not functioning or your school’s network is down. If you do this very often, you may wish to store it, for educational purposes, onto a CD.

Legal Briefs in the Tech & Topics Classroom

  

     Hmm.
     We have been given the challenge of figuring out other possible ways to do the mandatory legal briefs assignment in the Xavier University Tech and Topic class. Increased efficiency and brevity in presentation are two elements that are behind seeking a new method.

CC

        Currently, we write two legal briefs related to the education field, then discuss them in the classroom. (Note: The presentation portion took up 3.5 hours in a class that is only 3.75 hours long. Our briefs were not too brief!) The briefs are eventually published on each student's personal XU Web page. Part of the stated purpose behind this writing exercise is to prepare teaching candidates for exams that will include questions about various court cases involving education issues.
      My problem? I like this method, partly because it fits my learning style and my educational background. Even though I was a journalism undergrad, my minors were psychology and law.I am already familiar with many of the cases. I do not have a perfect eidetic memory, but I can scan a document in seconds and remember at least the gist of the topic. That means that a well-written legal "brief" is a perfect tool for me to study. Anything that involves video or screencasts -- actually anything that takes longer than simply reading a concise text -- is not time-efficient for me.
     Now how would I redo the exercise for those students who are different-styled learners? Well, I might suggest a method that would combine the old and the new (in other words, a method that still might help me!). I would have students post their legal briefs onto something collaborative, such as a Google Doc. I would categorize them by topic (for example: freedom of speech, student rights, religion, etc.) to make it easier to draw mental connections between cases.
      Since students are working in a collaborative document, I would also have them make comments or add to the other legal briefs. For example, as students read other briefs, they can add notes as to how their own cases that they reviewed are linked in concepts and implications. A variation on this would be to include hypertext links between cases that tie together concepts from each case. A student would read a case, see a hypertext to an interesting/important concept, then would click on it and be taken directly to that other court case's legal brief.
     I am eager to see what other ideas are floating around out there. My challenge to the rest of the class is to present something that might change my mind on my own personal learning style!