Technology Integration Plan: Emily Dickenson

To implement technology into a lesson plan, I used a former lesson plan from last semester. While this lesson plan is structured for students to stay in their seats and work alone, I was able to accommodate changes to make the lesson plan more fun and student oriented. The teaching strategies and technology added to this lesson plan allows students to work together with other students and technology to help them understand Emily Dickenson and her writings better. Within this lesson, students will be asked to identify and understand Emily Dickenson as a person, and then apply what they learned about her to her poems. Then they will have to cite and use textual evidence to support their claims of how Emily Dickenson’s life related to her poems. Once they have a clear understand of Emily Dickenson, they must determine a theme to her poems, which students must look for on the Internet. (I’m nobody, who are you?? And Pain has an element of blank). Then the students must be able to answer the why her poems seem so bleak and negative, using prior knowledge learned in the beginning of the class.

First, students will be placed into groups and work on computers to find a biography of Emily Dickenson. Once they find a biography on Emily Dickenson, they will use Word Document and cite characteristics of the poet. Once they have a good a good amount of descriptors, they will find a citation website (like easybib, or citation machine) and cite the website they were using. When they are completely finished, they will present their findings to the class. When the students are finished presenting their findings, they will be tasked with finding the two poems I’m nobody, who are you?? And Pain has an element of blank, on the Internet.

Once the students find the two poems, they will read them out loud in their groups. The students will then work together to figure out the main theme of each poem. Once they have a general idea of the themes, they will present them to the class, in which I will record their themes on the Smartboard, which will stay up for the remainder of the class, to see if their themes changed, if at all. If themes are repeated, I will put tallies next to them. If they have any questions about their themes, I will be answering them during this time.

Once the students are cohesive about the themes, they will use their prior information that they found on Emily Dickenson to create a three to four pargraphs, on word document, explaining the relation to her life and the poems themes. Within their groups, students will choose a scribe, who will write the paragraphs. Once done, the students will print out their paragraphs. Once printed, each other student, will take turns editing the paragraphs, either to fix grammar, spelling, or flow. They will then, rewrite their paragraphs, and edit them one more time. Finally, students will then edit their final changes into their work, print out a final copy, along with a works cited page, and hand it in, along with their drafts.

Having completed this, they will have completed the CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.1, which is to cite textual evidence to support an analysis of what the text says. Also, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.2, which is to determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text. Finally, they will have accomplished CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.9-10.5 which would have students understand how to analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text. Using technology, students will be able to be creative and innovative, and use their critical thinking, problem solving, and decision-making skills. Students will be able to communicate and collaborate with each other to bounce ideas off each other and edit each other’s work. Using the computers effectively and productively, students will be able to allowed to work on their research and information fluency.

After this lesson, students should be able to make the connections between Emily Dickenson’s personal life and her poetry. Using information listed in her biography, which they must search for on the Internet, they will have a basic understanding of her life. Then students will find her two poems and draw connections between them and her life. Students then will be able to write cohesive paragraphs explaining their connection to her personal life and her poetry, citing the information from her biography and her poetry. They will write their paragraphs, editing them each time, and finally hand it in with a works cited page. Students will then have an understand of Emily Dickenson and her poetry. 

Final Spreadsheet

Helping Students with Writing

As an English Teacher, I’ve come to find that there are not many technologies we could use in our classrooms, besides websites. I have stated in previous blog posts, that I would be wary about students using their laptops in my classroom. So the least I would be able to do for them is give them a good list of resources that my student would be able to use. I remember, back when I was a student in high school, every year, we would have that one creative writing paper.

The paper would be able to be about anything, but it had to be fiction. As a creative writing minor now, you could imagine I was always happy about said assignments, but my peers, not so much. They would always struggle with coming up with a simple idea. As a teacher, I want this process to be as enjoyable as possible. So what I would add to their sheet of resources is a website called the Fiction Generator.

It is exactly what the title says it is. Only this is one of the best ones I have seen. This gives the student a lengthy plot summary, without writing the story for them; it just gives the student information about a situation. Not only does this generator involve character quirks, but also interesting settings and titles for the paper (something I always had trouble with). What I liked most about this generator was that in the description, it used very large vocabulary words, so not only is it helping the student to write a very interesting fiction story, but it is also helping the student expand their vocabulary.

I personally believe this would be a great tool for a teacher to give students. It will allow them to not only explore different writing tools, but also help expand their vocabulary knowledge. 

Teaching English With Technology

While searching for different technologies that should be, would be, or have been used in the English classroom, I came across a fabulous website called Teaching English With Technology. This is a fantastic resource that all English Education Teachers should know, and also share with their students. While looking around on the website, not only did I find many resources, and links to go along with them, but above all the sources and link, it gives a description as to why you should use this type of technology. For example, there were citing help, lessons and activities, and multimedia help. It honestly is a fantastic website for a teacher or a student.

I remember when I was in high school, in the beginning of the year, the teachers would outline their syllabus and explain briefly about a research paper, and list some of the databases we should use. Then come the time of the research paper, they would throw us students to the sharks and we would be on our own for citing, databases, and research. This would always be extremely stressful because I would never know which database would be good or not. This website, Teaching English With Technology already has good databases listed, and good citing websites to help student do everything correctly.

As stated before, this is also a wonderful tool for teachers to use also. It gives different websites for English teachers to use that helps with lessons, interactive white boards, e books, and so much more. It really is a great resource to everyone in the English classroom. I am actually extremely happy that I stumbled upon such a wonderful and helpful website. Not only am I going to save it for future use as a teacher, but also I believe I will continue to use it during my college education. 

The Movie Taboo in the English Classroom

 During our high school careers, I’m sure plenty of us have read Shakespeare, and then have seen a clip from a movie that was made on the same story. Why aren’t more classrooms doing this? I always thought, and still think, it is a great way for students to see the action of the story played out by actors, instead of in their mind. Or even, when students are reading plays out loud, I don’t think I was ever in a class where a reading of a Shakespeare play was read enthusiastically.

It was always monotone, the fight scenes, if played out, were always boring and silly. That is because these high school students are becoming young adults, where popularity is the most important thing to them, and actually acting out an old play in front of the whole class would be embarrassing to them. So why no cut out the embarrassment and have students read the play and watch a scene or entire movie adaptation?  

Maybe, after the movie, the students could write a short paragraph or two about how they envisioned the characters, action, or setting to be different in their mind. Have them talk about the differences. Let them make connections. It always seemed as if showing the movie adaptation of a book that was read in the classroom was almost taboo.

I remember as a student, my class would be for a movie adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and my teacher would quickly dismiss the subject. Why should we be afraid of this? We shouldn’t at all! It gives students either a better understanding of the book (which I felt commonly happened to me) or it gives them a visual of what they just read. We should be afraid of movie adaptations, we, as teachers, should embrace them as another way of teaching our students. 

Collaborative Program for Group Papers

Have you ever had one of those group projects in High School that the entire group needs to write a paper? All of your group members would grumble, and procrastinate and then quickly meet up before the paper was due to finally type it and hand it in. Well there is an alternative program, quite like Google Documents, called Will You Type With Me. This program allows students (after making a login name) to share a document, work on it together, and be able to chat, almost like an instant message, within the document. This way, students will be able to share ideas, and comments about the document they are working on. This is extremely helpful because students are able to work on the document together, so all the ideas of the group are shared in one setting and in one document.

I think this would be a fantastic tool for students to have because group projects are never an easy thing to do. Which member has extracurricular activities, which member cant get meet because their parents cant drive them, group projects always come with excuses.  This program, Will You Type With Me, allows students to meet virtually and accomplish the paper without having to cancel appointments, schedule meeting times, and such.

This is something that would be so beneficial to students. I think high school students should have access to other student’s emails, just as college students have. It would make group projects less daunting and much more easier. Plus with the program Will You Type With Me it would make group papers in the English classroom much more bearable. It is difficult for high school students, especially freshman, sophomores, and juniors to get parents to drive them to a destination to work on a paper. So this program would be very helpful for the non-driving student. 

E-Readers in the School System

With the holiday season upon us, and the commercials and advertisements bombarding viewers, I can’t help but think about E-readers for the classroom. I could remember, back in high school, in my class of 20 plus students, five students would always be with out a book. My teacher would have to scramble to get those five students a book before we were too deep within said book and the poor students would be lost. So why not have student’s get/be given e-readers?

With the tiny budgets school have, and the lack of funding we are getting, should we scrap the books and give our students e-readers instead? They e-readers would be packed with text books and language arts books that wont have missing pages or ripped covered that they will not be charged for, even though they weren’t the ones who ripped it. While this seems like a good idea, I can’t imagine it would ever work out, without some kind of system.

Students, especially in high school, are clumsy, careless, and forgetful. So if their e-reader breaks, they should then have to pay out of pocket to get another one. This would teach them to be responsible with their work, grades, and their technology. Having e-readers would allow students to always have the information at their finger tips, to not flip back and fourth between the pages of heavy text books. To be able to find that one quote that they need for an essay. While this would be extremely beneficial, it would be a drastic change in the school system—to go from text in every class, to a completely text less school. Also, the added benefit for students would be the reduced backpack weight. Suddenly with out five heavy textbooks and the two to three language arts books, the back pack would be extremely lightweight! 

Remixing Technology and Curriculum

For this canvas remix, I tried to mesh the lesson plan of “Bad Case of Bullying” with “The Changing Ideologies of Race, Culture and Demographics”. I felt these two meshed because they sometimes go together. It seemed that the lesson plan of race, culture and demographics, went well with bullying because sometimes in school student will face not only bullying but racial bullying. I felt these two would mesh well, so I decided to remix our canvases together. While I did take out some widgets from the previous canvas, not because I didn’t like them, it was strictly because the canvas kept warping and movie and it was very difficult to work with. So I eliminated two of the “more information” widgets and the video widget, because they were making it difficult to work with. I felt that the rest of the information would be able to stay to get the point of racial bullying across.

Here is the link to the remixed canvas

Social Media and Technology in English Education

Would involving technology in the English classroom make plagiarism easier? If a student is writing on their laptop, tablet, whatever they are using, would it be easier to just copy and paste something from the internet and use it as their own? Of course, in recent times, students would be able to copy and paste information and change some sentences and claim it as their own. But are we allowing that to happen? I would like to think that everyone is an honest writer, but what if you have other work to do, and an essay just slipped your mind. Now you have to do it at two o’clock in the morning. So wouldn’t it just be easier to copy and paste something? Do we have the technology to stop this from happening? Is the internet marring students from writing proper essays?

                I wrote in a previous post that one of my college professor was telling us how to write proper essays. Not you use “u” in place of “you” and such, so if the internet harming our writing and reading skills? Is it making it too easy to cut corners when writing and reading? Is the internet, social media, and our texting going to hurt the future generations? If so, how do we stop this? Do we even stop this or become accustomed to it? Is this what we have to look forward as English teachers of the new generation? It worries me that children are constantly on their phones, on the computers, shortening their writing just so they could type faster. But in reality it is going to harm them when they don’t know what proper “to” and “too” to use.

Sorry for so many questions, this has just been boggling my mind for a bit, and I wanted to see what you thought about this situation. 

Unit Plan Canvas

The lesson plan I choose for last week was called A Bad Case of Bullying: Using Literature Response Groups. It allowed students to reflect upon the reading picked out by the teacher, two books about bullying. Then it allowed the students to reflect upon the situations and personally connect with the emotions and circumstances that happened in the book, with their own lives. Along with connections, students are asked to discuss bully behavior, acceptable behavior, and how to avoid them.

            I must admit, this was not my favorite way of outlining a lesson plan. I was not a fan of this website. While it was easy to maneuver, I thought it was a little silly to go through all this work, when this topic will be discusses in class. For students, I think it would be difficult to keep their attention while making or looking at this website. There as so many ways to click on things and get side tracked, or accidently click on something that will erase everything that you completed…like I did.

Bad Case of Bullying Canvas

Is Leapfrog the enemy?

Leapfrog Reader

                In the recent times, technology seems to find its way into younger children’s hands. Whether it be the iPhone for games, the iPad for television, or leapfrog readers. When I first heard about the leapfrog readers, I thought they were very cool and very helpful. But as I grew older, and started seeing them in person, I started to think. Is this marring children’s learning experience? The leapfrog reader consists of: a special book, and a computerized pen. With this book, the pen could read the words children are having trouble sounding out. But doesn’t that take away from the child’s learning?

                The pen is practically spoon feeding them the information they were supposed to struggle to learn. As they sit, with the special book on their laps, learning how to read, they are not comprehending the information that is being fed to them. Instead of figuring out the process themselves, they are skipping it entirely. The children sit with the book on their lap, using the pen to finish the book for them, one the reach the end of the book they close it and go play, not having learned a thing!

This problem could only happen if the children are given the regular leapfrog pad. Now there is a leapfrog tablet that is basically an iPad for ‘learning’. With this leapfrog tablet, you could play games to help ‘learn’ how to read, write, and do math. Is this the right way of teaching our children? Though technology, instead of human contact? Should we continue doing this?  Today we are giving our young children so many ways to circumvent learning. Are we harming our children with these technologies? Or are we actually helping them for the future, to be more dependent on technology? What do you think?

Technology & Pedagogy

Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Auq91Ju4QG2FdDVuNGhQYXNBUTFMY3Nna2RpRnRxV3c&usp=sharing

The reason why I chose this lesson plan was because of its relevance to society currently. Bullying has become an epidemic, coping skills and reactions should be taught as early as possible to give students some help to deal with bullying. While reviewing the lesson plan, I found the plan to be completely copasetic and flowed wonderfully. The plan worked well by having students work on their own, mostly, and complete the goal fully. While there were not gaps between the teaching strategies that were used in this lesson plan, I did find some technology gaps. Since this lesson plan is available for students in third to fifth grade, it would be useful to have students work on the computers a little more.

 Instead of having students write in their journals, have them type them out, print them, and have a peer edited them on the printed version. It would give students a chance to see how to take their peers reviews and change their writing on the computer. It would also give them a change to understand how computers work with writings. Saving, printing, editing, all of these features could also be used in the lesson plan. Also, working with the smart board will allow students to get a taste of what technologies are available to them. It will allow them to have more interaction with the board then they would with post it notes (an activity which students much place emotions on the board with sticky/post it notes).

Computer Games in the English Classroom

I remember when I was in grammar school, maybe first or second grade, we would have time set aside so we could go on the computers and play games. Of course these games were “educational” and not role playing or first person shooter games. But corny children games with spelling aliens or grammatically correct dogs. But as I grew older, I wondered, were these games actually helping me to read? When I would go home, I would sit with either one of my parents for an hour or two practicing sight words and reading easy books, such as Dr. Seuss or Curious George. This was helping me learn how to read. Not silly little computer games. I remember when I would go on the computer, I would either sit there and click on random things, or blur out my vision (space out) and click to hear the noises.

It wasn’t until I was older that I actually knew what the computer games were asking me to do. By the time I knew what the computer games were asking, I was bored with them. It wasn’t helping me, it was schooling me on things I knew already. So why do we continue to use these games? Is it to break students up and give them a break? Or is it to say “well we have supplemental computer games to help them learn” so parents feel comfortable when they don’t have enough time to sit down with their child to teach them how to read? Is it purely for the fact to that it gives parents the peace of mind that their child is getting one on one attention from a computer screen? I personally think these games are silly, students need human help to help them learn how to read. They should be able to go to their teachers or parents or friends to help them learn. They shouldn’t have to rely on a computer to learn how to read.

Do you think computer games are helpful to teach students how to read?

Technology in English Class

Recently, I have been rethinking my post supporting technology in classrooms, especially in English classrooms.  The problem I have with technology in classrooms is that they are a distraction. While I would like to think my students are using their laptops and smart phones for their writing help, I know it is unrealistic. It is more tempting to use your laptop to update social Medias and blog sites, rather than take notes quicker. Students are more inclined to tweet about being in class, than pay attention in class, and that is a huge problem. English has trouble grasping student’s attention, but I believe that is because they aren’t even listening.

English is extremely important for students to know. While they are studying Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, or Jane Austin, they are also learning how to interpret literature, and to read and write at a higher level. Students are too busy texting their friends using shortened words and abbreviations to be learning how to write properly. I remember last year, in my junior year of college, my professor was explaining how he wanted an essay written. He stated “be sure to write out you, and not just use the letter u.” I was appalled that this needed to be reminded to college students.

 I was embarrassed when he continued to tell the class that he had received many papers with the letters “u” instead of “you”, or that his students didn’t know the difference between “too” and “to”. This is why technology should be allowed in classrooms. It is sad that college students do not know the difference between texting and writing an academic paper. Personal technology (such as laptops, and smart phones) should not be allowed in the classroom because it is marring the intelligence of writing academic papers and reading on the academic level. 

History of Technology in English

The Reading Accelerator was used to help students read more efficiently.

Technology in High Schools

During my college career, I have always been able to use my laptop or have my phone out on my desk. So why is it in high school we are not allowed such privileges? While I must admit, in some boring classes I do tend to wander onto the internet, or secretly text. But more often the not I am taking notes or writing on my laptop, and using my phone (when my computer is not available) to look up words I do not know, or how to spell large words (as sad as that sounds). As an English major, I think I would advocate the use of laptops in my class because I personally take better notes on the computer. If I am writing notes, my hands, from pressing too hard on the paper, become very tired, and I don’t write as many notes. Since I am use to writing on the computer (from the amount of essays an English major has to go though) I would feel more comfortable on a laptop then on a computer.

Then again, to play devil advocate, I’ll be the first to admit English IS boring subject as a student. It wasn’t until I had a couple of classes in college that I learned to love the English major for all its stories and deep meanings. But as a High School Student, I think we could all say, English wasn’t our favorite subject (it was mine, but it wasn’t as fun as college courses). Is it because if we have laptops or cellphones on us, we would be able to focus on the books we are forced to read for standardized tests? Or is it because they are afraid we will be reading something far better on the internet that won’t help the test scores? When we don’t have standardized testing do you think high school students would be allowed laptops and cellphones? Are they THAT much of a distraction that we can’t simply have either? Is there a happy median?

As a future teacher I would have to go back on my own argument. While I wouldn’t like students to have their cellphones AND computers out, I wouldn’t mind either. I know, for myself, that one or the other is a good tool to help me get my thoughts out and help me look up definitions and word spelling. But both seem a bit excessive, that would be, I feel, a technology over load in a simple thirty to forty-five minute class time. So, for me as a future teacher, I would say either or. But is that such a good idea? To have technology in High School classrooms? As you could see, I don’t quite know myself. But since High School IS preparing us for college, wouldn’t it be a good learning experience for students to use their technology in a safe expanded marking period and not a condensed semester like college? Wouldn’t it be good to know what works for them before they get to college?

Technology Autobiography

Technology has always been there helping me with my schooling. When I was younger, I had difficulties in Math, so my parents, knowing I like to play on the laptop computer, bought me a Math computer game. I would play on this this game, without knowing it was helping me with my math skills. As I grew older, and I received my IPhone and Ipad in High School, it was like I had the internet at my fingertips. While this helped greatly with wanted to know facts at that moment, it also became a crutch. It suddenly became harder to check out books from the library. How did I find them without using the internet? Of course, after taking me a very long time, I figured it out. But was painfully slow at it.

The similarities between me and the students in the video Is simple. Most of the students in the video used their phones. As do I, to this day, will always have my phone on me. Not only for texting or getting a hold of someone, but for the fact that if I needed to know something at the exact moment, I would be able to look it up not problem. Also, the use of Apps on the phone not only help consume time when you are waiting for someone, or waiting at the doctor’s office. The use of Apps on the phone is wonderful for consuming time and also finding out new information. While you are waiting, you could read the news, and see current events.  The iphone definitely became an extension of myself.

Also, the use of a laptop is something I had in common with the students in the video. While I do not use it for making music, or videos, I do use it when I want to learn something new, be it a language (Japanese isn’t that easy to learn on the computer…) or a current event. Mostly, when I want to relax and read current even going on around the world, I would relax with my laptop.

The only differences I had with the students in the video was the use of Video Games, and my ipad. No students mentioned the ipad, which in hindsight is almost exactly like a laptop. When my laptop is dead, or when I want to play games, I switch to my ipad. But the students who mentioned the Video Game Consoles, completely opened my eyes. Since I was a child, I had a video game system in my house. I was four years old playing the Super Nintendo. Even today, now that I am twenty-one years old I still play video games on all different consoles. It is true what the student says, your hand eye coordination because wonderful after playing years and years of video games. But also, when I was younger, and there would be subtitles and speaking parts in video games, it actually aided me in reading. It sounds bizarre, but it is true, Video Games helped me learn, and no those educational video games that I spoke of previously. It is amazing how technology will help you learn, you just have to open your eyes and take notice.