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Add comment Posted in Uncategorized November 9, 2008
So while researching vlogs I found out something interesting PEOPLE OH MY GOD LIE ON THE INTERNETS. Many vloggers are not who they say they are, their blogs are entirely fictional however we the user assume they are real. Lonelygirl was a vlog started by a production company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonelygirl15 and it took its userbase many months to discover that the teenaged Bree was in fact a twenty something woman from Newzealand. So “Bree” lied and this led to a trend for vlogging to be used as a form of fictional story telling. However it’s important for students when being given a vlogging assignment to be told whether or not its non fictional or fictional due to incidents like lonelygirl making vlogging confusing and difficult to trust.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized November 5, 2008
Heads up guys! my work partner and I have decided to do video blogging for our assignment at university so my posts will most likely be less OMG DID YOU SEE THIS ARTICLE? WHAT THE HECK? and more OMG YOUTUBE! I’ve actually been researching video blogs and I have no idea it was such a huge industry. Theres even an entire sub industry where people write their own fictional shows and upload them in the form of video blogs on youtube and other websites.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized October 25, 2008
http://search.informit.com.au.ezproxy.lib.uts.edu.au/fullText;dn=105108;res=AEIPT ok this article is STRICTLY for my fellow UTS students because you need to log into our library to see it. The author is basically argueing that many people who are used to typing essays and documents have become illiterate when it comes to writing with A PEN. I am sadly one of these people, due to my six year addiction to online posting and msn messenger I can now type eighty words a minute (not always spelt correctly but no ones perfect) and yet my handwriting resembles that of a thirteen year olds. Now I could cry about this and bemoan the loss of the written word but really history has ALWAYS been about new forms of writing and language, ancient socities carved their words into rocks and up until a few hundred years ago people wrote with feather pens. Even last centuary the biro pen DIDNT ALWAYS EXIST and people instead relied on pens they had to refill with ink ( fountain pens are pretty cool though) I say we should embrace this new form of technology. After all it takes just as much skill to learn how to type as I am right now without looking at the keyboard once. Instead my brain and fingers have memorised the location of keys and my hands can type automatically, isn’t a skill like that just as difficult as using a pen?
2 comments Posted in Uncategorized October 18, 2008
Normally I dont like to talk about two things, politics and religion becauce chances are someone will jump down your throat and make you look like a complete moron. However I have been forced to discuss religion due to the debate on whether or not evolution should be taught in schools.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/education/24evolution.html?_r=6&pagewanted=3&ref=todayspaper&oref=login (warning you need to register to read this but its so worth it) a friend of mine a teacher from western australia sent me this article on friday. It raises an interesting question, how is a teacher supposed to teach something which is scientifically true and filled with empircal evidence when peoples religious views stop them? english is far easier to choose because lets face it grammar doesn’t normally offend different religions. In english as long as you can back it up you can believe just about anything when it comes to books and plays on the syllabus. Evolution on the other hand is well fact, animals have evolved. Of course this isnt the first time this has happened. Scientists in the past have been told despite evidence that their theories such as the earth being round, germs existing and gravity cannot possibly be true. But isn’t that the entire point of educating? in order to give people new ideas? after all ideas are important. This teacher attempting to teach these students these concepts despite their resistance was an incredibly brave and frustrating journey especially considering he wasn’t supported by his fellow biology teacher.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized October 13, 2008
As part of my quest to understand more about teenagers and digital cultures I asked my good friend’s seventeen year old sister to add me to face book, we’ve known each other for years but of course I saw a completely different person online. Most of what I saw has agreed with what I’ve seen in literacy which is that we’re entering a brave new world styled culture which involves teenagers communicating directly in large groups and also using technology to express their thoughts and feelings. One of the most popular and simple things is through the face book status change, within twenty seconds a person can enter a one word sentence stating how a person is feeling for everyone to see. Popular choices for teenagers include.
· Statements about their health.
· Favourite song lyrics.
· Things which are currently annoying them.
· Statements of affection towards friends.
· Personal attacks against former friends and partners.
The other of thing I’ve realised through my practicum is that despite teachers arguing about students lacking literacy and mathematical skills they are ignoring something fundamental. Students no longer live in the world of handwritten essays and word problems. A student may be horrified by the concept of writing a short story in class but the same student is perfectly capable of typing uploading and sharing their own Harry Potter or Gossip Girl story on self publishing websites such as www.fanfiction.net whose majority of users are teenagers. Mark Prensky in Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants argues that this is because we are currently dealing with the first generation of teenagers who have had access to the internet for their entire academic lives. These students like myself were using word processing programs in year one. He also argues that students who are born into this environment are digital natives, from an early age they are capable of monitoring their own personal websites, creating blogs, videos and music uploads. Meanwhile teachers who were not born into this environment are known as digital immigrants; although they learn aspects of the digital culture they still retain their former non digital identity. Perhaps the most telling “accent” is the use of net speaks, in a forum one can immediately see the digital immigrant due to their use of net speak. Other methods of the digital accent involves users asking people to come to their website to0 physically view a website instead of sending a URL as well as printing emails and calling people to ask if they received an email. Being a digital immigrant instead of a digital native means we need to understand that out students are born to express themselves through computer and digital programs instead of traditional forms of education and their brains have literally been wired a different way.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized October 9, 2008
http://www.greatschools.net/ I found out about this website from a friend of mine and its essentially a site which rates thousands of schools across America. Although this sounds like an ok idea in practise it seemed a little bit disturbing when I took a closer look, in fact it seemed like the sort of website created by overly ambitious parents who tend to blame the school NOT the student when their kids grades arn’t perfect. Lets for example look at the way the schools are rated based on test scores. A child’s education is NOT entirely determined by their test scores and considering that the SAT doesn’t really take into account things like oral speaking, essay writing and athletic ability I dont think this american website should judge a school based on its test scores.I for example during my education excelled at essay writing subjects such as english and history but when it came to subjects that were based on “test scores” such as mathamatics I failed miserbly. I was not a “test score” gal and many students arnt. The website also reviews schools based on cultural makeup which is going to lead a fair few parents to make a few unfair assumptions. Sure most parents arn’t like this but quite a few are and should they really use a website to judge a school based on it’s cultural backround?
This entire website reminds me of the film Pretty in Pink where even though the title character attends a public school she’s informed that she’s lucky to go there because she’s from ” the wrong side of the tracks” and theres is a good school filled with good children from a higher socio economic backround. This website also makes me think that its using schools and education as a commodity, parents buy the right cars the right televisions and now they can use the internet to send their kids to the “right” schools. Personally I think there is no ” right” or wrong school and its all about how the indivduel student reacts to their enviroment. I have met wonderful teachers who have worked in lower socio economic areas and I have met terrible teachers who work in private schools! It really doesnt matter.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized September 24, 2008
Mrs D’s Blog
I really like this http://depaulablogs4.edublogs.org/about/blog it gave me some great ideas for different themes I can use in unit’s of work such as “ Destiny”. I also enjoyed her choice of texts such as “ A Knights Tale” to explain the concept of a man choosing his own path. I also liked how she continued this theme by explaining countless texts where the hero chooses to reject or accept his own personal destiny. The schools I’ve attended during practicum tend to avoid teaching students about themes and concepts in senior years prefering to stick to safer English topics such as genres and different types of texts. I believe like Mrs D however that we should introduce themes and concepts at an earlier age otherwise the prospect can seem confusing and daunting for senior high school students in the HSC.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized September 24, 2008
Oh the wonders of computers in this digital age! Ok I only managed to successfully teach for one day at Prac before coming down with glandular fever. Yes it sucks to be me. Anyway I decided to use data projectors and power point presentations as well as a dvd player to do a rip roaring lesson on science fiction. I made two presentations one with the ” conventions” or glossary of sci fi and another where I showed how the wizard of Oz had been adapted into science fiction in the mini series Tin Man. However after setting everything up I returned to class to discover that the connection cable for the dataprojectors monitor had been STOLEN. By who, another teacher or student I suppose. I was stuck with a whiteboard texta in my hand and I had no choice but to do the entire glossary ON THE WHITEBOARD. The moral of the story is someone will always steal your data projector cable.
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized September 23, 2008
http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/2008/09/17/writing-with-my-students/
I’ve decided to blog about Kevin again because I was mistaken and assumed he was a science teacher! Nope NOT SO seems his a jack of all trades. He described a day today where he taught creative writing by first coming up with a list of titles for short stories. I thought this was an excellent idea because many students find creative writing tasks incredibly hard to grasp because they are to broad and choosing a title allows them to narrow their scope. This seems like a great way of preparing year seven and year nine students for the NAPLAN examination. I did also enjoy the fact that Kevin did the actvitiy as well because its important to show students the work is ACHIEVABLE and not just something you’re thrusting onto them. His story wasn’t that great although I am a fantasy snob, but at least he tried!
Add comment Posted in Uncategorized September 22, 2008
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