Google Docs

The middle school I am conducting my student teaching experience has employed a school wide use of Google Drive. Starting in sixth grade, students are given a Google Drive account which they are to utilize throughout their middle school career. In order to orient students with the multiple uses of a Google account, such as sharing documents to a teacher, fellow students, editing and working as a group and more, sixth graders spend a class period in the computer lab where the computer educator teaches students how to navigate their new account. Google accounts are a very useful educational tool, especially in the English classroom. When students are assigned a written homework assignment, essay response, or group project, our students simply share their documents with my cooperating teacher. Documents can be printed out and edited, or simply edited via computer using Google editors. It is also useful to use Google, while all documents are time stamped, and a teacher can see if an essay was edited last, or can even set a time limit for sending in essays or written work. Students can also collaborate for group work using this tool, while edits are done in real time. For example, I recently had students conduct a mock trial in our Language Arts classroom. While students worked in class to gather their evidence, many groups decided to collect their evidence and create their arguments on Google Docs, editing and adding their personal contributions on a document which they eventually shared with my cooperating teacher once it was completed. I find this to be a useful tool to integrate into my future classroom, while it eliminated paper usage, makes organization very simple, and also creates a sense of student independence and initiative as well as room for collaboration and creativity.

Cell Phone Use in School

While conducting a debate in class today, I noticed a student of mine using his phone as a recording device, so as to document the mock trial. What was interesting about this scenario was my reaction, which was hesitation. My initial reaction was that his device was not causing a distraction, in fact, he was using it as a helpful tool to document what was being said during the mock trial so as to be able to hone his closing statement, which would take place the following class time. After thinking about it, I told my student to put the phone away, which he argued was being used for educational purpose, to which I answered that if I see it, then I am required to take it away. He quickly assessed the loophole in my comment, and put the phone where I couldn't see it, which I was fully aware of and did not mind to address further. This situation caused me to look introspectively at my own opinions on the matter if cellular devices in the classroom, which I had not previously considered. Being in an eighth grade classroom, my students are on a cusp, in that they are not yet adults and yet cannot be considered children. While they are coming of age, I feel as though it is important to give students responsibility for their actions, especially ones they know the consequences to. While cell phone use is prohibited in school, I find that in certain instances they may be a beneficial tool for instruction and learning. While we live in a digital age, and most students can navigate technology fluently, it almost seems counter intuitive not to integrate technology into the classroom. The school I am in is not one in which students have consistent access to computers, and yet, the majority of students possess some sort of smart phone or device which can perform the same basic tasks. While cell phone use would have to be regulated and closely monitored, only allowing these devices to be used in class during allotted times, I believe the integration could be beneficial for many students as well as teachers.

Collaboration Canvas

Monica's original canvas focused on color theory, and how color affects how we see the world. She illustrated many different aspects of color theory, from the combination of different colors, to the connotations certain colors hold. She also included a poem about the color purple, which sparked me idea as to how I would incorporate color theory into my unit plan. While Vonnegut often uses the color blue as a repeated motif within his novel Slaughterhouse Five, I figured it would be helpful to delve into what the color blue means within the book, as well as how color is often used to symbolize ideas or emotions within works of art, poetry and literature. Vonnegut used the color blue multiple times to describe the color of the character, Billy Pilgrim's feet, while he is on the brink of frostbite and disease. Blue is used often as a reminder of our fragility and as a reminder of death, a dark theme which he stifles with the use of his apathetic and disillusioned narrative voice. This reminded me of the poem "Disillusionment of Ten O'clock" by Wallace Stevens, who describes the monotony and apathy of society with the use of color, or the lack thereof. This led to a connection to Picasso's Blue Period, in which he inadvertently expressed his depression and malcontent through a slew of paintings in which he used monochromatic hues of blue.

Canvas Remix

Unit Plan Canvas

Creating my canvas was a process which aided me in creating my unit plan on Slaughterhouse Five, which it enabled me to articulate and conceptualize my expectations. While the single lesson I had worked on for the previous Interactivity was a starting point, I needed to broaden what the unit as an entity would focus on, rather than honing a specific lesson. By writing a brief unit plan, I was able to focus on the overarching themes of the unit. An essential questions aided in focusing myopically on a single theme, while still considering relatability to the lesson plan as well as the unit. I very much liked the idea of adding photos and especially a video to the canvas, while it added another dimension to the unit. By viewing the trailer to the movie, students see visual synopsis of what they will encounter in the novel. Adding additional resources creates depth to the unit, while the sources I chose build upon important themes and background knowledge. For my unit on Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, I plan to focus on the fatalism which pervades the novel, which is implemented through the apathetic language ("so it goes", a crux of the novel which is repeated hundreds of times) as well as the broader theme of the degradation of the belief in free will.

Exploring Slaughterhouse Five

Technology and Pedagogy

I chose this lesson plan because I felt as though it was a holistic approach to incorporating writing, Literature, art, music and technology with even distribution. This lesson is exemplary of using technology as a crux, rather than a supplement within a lesson, which is beneficial as well as relatable to students. Instead of using technology as an adornment, this lesson is equally student driven as it is technology, literature or art-centered. I have found that, in terms of teaching strategies and Common Core Standards, in relation to English specifically, that there are no standards which align well with using different arts and technologies within a lesson. While W.11.12-6 mentions the use of technology vaguely, there is no snug fit for connecting literature to the arts using technology. I find this somewhat synesthetic lesson a highly efficient one, while it is mainly student-centered, and also engages all types of learners with a multitude of interests- which to me, is essential to achieving curriculum goals. The only other technology I would incorporate into this lesson to make it more effective is photography and film, while I believe these mediums perfectly embody the essence of "brief, urgent messages- describing a situation, a scene; when seen all at once they create an image of life which is beautiful and surprising and deep." (Vonnegut, 111-112), while film and photography do exactly this, capturing single images or ideas which, when put in a sequence and in a context, can express a grand idea or emotion.

Spread Sheet

Web 2.0

While conducting my student teaching this semester, it’s hard not to notice the complete disconnect between the technologies thrust upon teachers within the school from top down, and their implementations. For example, since the beginning of the year I have heard endless qualms from all the teachers I have encountered about the difficulty and utter uselessness of the ten separate accounts teachers are required to utilize- one for their grade book, one parent portal, one curriculum changes, one for attendance, one for progress reports, ect. The problem is not that these technologies are ineffective, but in practice it would be sensible to have software in which all of these utilities could coincide in conjunction with one another. Many teachers within the district have made it their mission to supply the schools with Google tablets, while all students and teachers are required to have a Google account which is frequently utilized for a multitude of purposes. In fact, Google had a promotion which would sell their tablets at one third of the cost to schools, a proposition which was brought to the school board, but was turned down.

            While technology, if used efficiently, could be a liberating tool from the antiquated “lecture style” classroom structure, giving autonomy to students to learn in non-linear ways. Instead, because of the political and economic structures which keep the business-like model of schools intact, students must continue to succumb to the socialization and ideological agenda inherent within our educational system. We have not traveled far from Common School-like doctrine, using schooling as a vehicle to instill ideologies which benefit the economic and political need of the times. While I do believe that technology such as computers could be highly beneficial within the English classroom, I find it imperative that students as well as teachers receive the proper education in how these technologies work, in order to use them efficiently and creatively. Web 2.0 can be a fantastic way to implement non-linear content within the classroom. Using Google Drive to collaborate and share essays, blogs, podcasts, and even lessons can be a highly effective tool for student-centered learning. By empowering students to be the agents of their own education, as well as supplying both students and teachers with the proper background and skills to utilize these technologies, the linear dynamic of the classroom could have the potential to be a catalyst for divergent and critical thinking. 

History of Technology in English

Books continue to be a highly influential,yet in many cases antiquated, medium which instill schooling's implicit curriculum- not very different from the lessons taught from McGuffey's Eclectic Reader.