nina0404's blog

A Struggle:

Feeling like I am playing catch up to others in the class skill level wise.

An Accomplishment:

I finally figured out how to make a roof!

An observation:

I find that I am much more ambitious in single player mode than in our multiplayer mode. In single player mode I don't feel like I will be judged for my slow skill level whereas in multiplayer I have to constantly play catch-up. I find this interesting in relation to the conversations we have had in class about audience and how we adapt ourselves to those audiences. In the online context we see and percieve only a fraction of what is going on. Someone's success may seem like inherent skill in the game when it could have taken hours and hours of trial and error.

It would be interesting if we all kept in mind the portrayals we give someone when we see their house or farm and compare it to facebook when looking at someones picture or status.

At the end of the thrid week I have to say that what I have truly enjoyed is learning more about my own interests and uses for technology. I am very excited to start my field placement which I feel will be very grounding on the subject of tech and education and to continue exploring twitter and blogs for articles and comments in the field.

Something that I had trouble with was our assignment to analyze a question from Selwyn's book. I had a lot of trouble with this analysis and could not get into the paper I was writing. I think most of the troubled stemmed from my own uncertanties with the question and lack of observations and knowledge. I am hoping at the end of the course I can come back to this paper and truly reflect on this stage of the class and where I was in my thinking. I feel with my field placement and further reseach I will be better equipped to analyze the question: Does technology make education fairer?

For the class I hope we continue to incorporate digital media into the class and that I personally can keep up with my explorations on my blog.

I found this NYT article on Twitter and I feel like it links to our conversation on "effective" uses of technology in the classroom as well as the teacher vs technology debate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/magazine/no-child-left-untableted.html?pagewanted=7&_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&partner=rss&emc=rss&

In my time in class and at my field placement I have discovered what has been most interesting to me is the interaction between student and teacher and the unspoken structure and relationship in the classroom. What I didn’t notice until the editing of this paper was the subliminal use of language, body language, and expectation that creates an interpretation and characterization of a classroom.

            In my first day at the field placement my notes had a lot of interpretation that followed what we discussed as “note-making”. In class when we discovered the difference of note-taking and note-making I looked back at my notes and realized I passed a lot of judgments that I assumed were objective observations. I observe two different class periods in my time at my placement.  Each class has different characteristics but the way I described them was very subjective to “normal” class assumptions. The following is a summarization of what my notes described:

John Dewey: Experience and Education

            Upon reading this book I couldn’t help but compare my own education to the subdivisions that Dewey was speaking about. Was I a product of more traditional education or of progressive education? If I had to choose one I would say traditional. My school days before college were filled with routine, strict guidelines, top-down rulings, and other harsh descriptive words thought up during class. These negative words though seem to do injustice to my education though because while it might have not have been progressive it hardly seem old.

Table of Contents

1)    The Black Apple

2)    Reading Quietly vs. Reading in Your Head

3)    Stay in Your Section: Missing Out on the Wonder of Children’s Literature

4)    Moving to Washington Jackson Elementary

5)    After School Mania: Homework, Snacks, and Oregon Trail

6)    Up into Space: The Space Shuttle Mission of Class 6-1

7)    A Love Story Between a Girl and Her Soccer Ball

8)   The Middle School Chronicles

9)    A Good Paper Doesn’t Equal Plagiarism

0)  And Then There Came High School

11)  AP’s, SAT’s, ASP, and other Acronyms for Success

12)  Accepting Change

13)  Tales From a Target Employee

14)  Truths from a High School Senior: College Apps, Football Games, Gidget Friday’s, and Watching Over my Freshman Sister.

15)  Everything You Learned was Wrong: College

16)  I Have to Become a Real Person!! Preparing for Life.

A Good Paper Doesn’t Equal Plagiarism