Blog Journal # 9

Dear Blog Journal,

This may seem more like a moment I would share in a diary-- just to warn you ahead of time. I am writing to share a few of my feelings that I have had about my Final Project and working as a part of Group #7. Firstly, I love having met with Ms. Newman. She is the teacher for whom we are collectively introducing technological educational tools for. I feel that I am better prepared to give insight to internet sources and other web opportunities because I have learned to execute functions via technology in this course: Internet search tools, Inspiration, Microsoft Word/Powerpoint/Excel, Wikispaces.com and even this blog, blogger.com.
I was particularly influenced after walking into the classroom that Ms. Newman worked and actually seeing her limited tools and abilities to reach students. I wanted to be very careful to consider that she does not have adequate number of computers to reach her 15 or so students. I thought it was absolutely neccessary to introduce materials that she could teach with and still get a grand use of technology into her classroom experience.
As a Group #7 member I got to meet and introduce our project and views to our instructor. It was very important to me to find out exactly what her vision was for her language skills information. I felt the information to be a bit much to get into a lesson plan all at once so I asked her how do her students learn best. She let us know that we can continue to break her lesson plan into smaller areas of study so as to concentrate attention to one focus at a time. I found this to be absolutely neccessary because our material spanned more than 16 pages and each page had its own direction for using language more efficiently.
Since then, I have proposed that our group lists information in an order for which it can also be most readily understood or chronologically. I suggested that we look at the big picture and find the parts that make the big picture possible.

For example: We want to encourage middle school students to write dialogue well.

So I suggest that we list a few simple quotes that 12-15 year olds will use.
Then, I suggest that we slowly dissect the quote from start to finish in our online Wikispace. First we evaluate the message itself, next the parts that make the message make sense. I encourage that the students choose words that are synonymous with the words present to make a new sentence with stronger impact.

Lastly, I have learned that teaching is not as easy as it looks. I was immediately reminded of the very first blog journal I had written. In it I took a test that evaluated tools that help me learn best. That week I remember that each of my classmates' results were completely different. Each of me and my group members' perspectives were all different on how we should present the information Ms. Newman asked of us. Essentially, I have learned a grandeur scope of how to relay information to others when communicating and how to be a better listener.

Although it is very hard work and I have dedicated more than 12 hours a week of my personal time trying to better understand how to present my thoughts and ingest others', I am grateful for my experience thus far! I have enjoyed Ms. Newman, Julie and Carly as well.