Portfolio Assignment

Looking back throughout the course of this semester, the work that I have done will be a helpful tool as I enter the realm of a classroom. The texts have been facsinating because of the relevance they had for what I would want to be as a teacher. Gee's book, "What Video Games have to Teach us About Learning and Literacy," has shown me that as teachers we need to reflect more on the embodied action and spend more time in designing a means for students to be able to construct their learning so that they dont look at a textbook the same way I would look at a videogame manual. We need to set up the stage, use terminology that they can understand so that they can grasp the bigger concepts in subjects such as science or economics. In the same way, Stefanie Harvey states in her book, Nonfiction Matters, the key to teaching writing is passion. Children are passionate inquirers and providing a means for them to discover the world in new and real ways through nonfiction can fuel their desire to continue their journey of learning.
The compostions that I have made throughout this course have been challenging, not just because they demanded me to step outside of what I was familiar with, but they encouraged me to think in new ways because of who my audience was. In each composition I found that I had much higher expectations of myself because I felt like there was a purpose in my writing. My audiences were important to me, therefore, the writing that I produced became much more important than it would have otherwise. I want to remember each of these compositions, and all of them for different reasons. I enjoyed learning about what I am capable of in technologically, I feel like I would be much more comfortable creating a digital document for a future presentation or even in my future classroom. Learning about how to write a professional memorandum bestowed a sense of reality in my mind. I look forward to the challenge of communicating what I feel needs to be done to better the programs within my school district. Lastly, I look forward to remembering the assignment sequence. I hope that one day I will be able to utilize and implement the lesson that I have created in this class.

Reflection on the Memorandum

I really like when I get the opportunity to write about something real in a creative way. I liked that I could be in character and have a voice in what I envision a English Language Arts curriculum to look like. It was hard for me to get started with the memorandum because I had a hard time trying to put all of my ideas into organized recommendations. The recommendations that I chose were an accumulation of many ideas that I found to be very crucial when implementing a literacy program. There was so much that I wanted to say and I found that I didnt have enough space to write all that I wanted to. As I look back, I hope that I was able to portray all that I was envisioning throughout the five recommendations that I stated in my memorandum. I was suprised to find that I was more envolved in what I was writing because of the fact that I had an audience, even though it was only a fabrication! If that assignment was to be repeated, I don't think that there is much to change. I was really happy with the detailed expectations that I was provided with along with the open-ended creativity that we were able to embrace throughout the assignment.

After reading the first chapter of The Rules of Thumb, I realized how much there is to know when it comes to the world of literacy. I have always felt pretty confident when it comes to punctuation and grammar but, there are definitely some problem areas that I was confirmed in while reading. One area in which I have always struggled with is whether or not it is appropriate to write out the numbers or just type out the numbers. The book said that if the number has more that two words (i.e. >twenty five) then you type out the number. I also found the section that discussed the one-word or two-word topic helpful. I have always mixed up whether or not words like alright or alot were one or two words. These problems that I have with literacy have been repeated over and over, being able to have a resouce like Rules of Thumb when I begin to teach will be helpful because there are aspects of writing that will continue to stump me.

Reflections on Readings

After reading these four articles I have learned a lot about the kind of teacher I want to be. One quality that stands out to me the most is the idea of modeling. I can not expect anything from my students that I am not doing myself. If I assign a reading assignment, I should be reading just as much (probably more) as my students. The same goes for writing, I want to continue writing even after college. In order for me to understand the struggles that my students are going through I want to say that I have experienced those same stuggles. This way the students will know that I can level with them and they can overcome their difficulties in writing. I also have learned that allowing students to have a voice with what they are able to write eventually allows them to know better how to write. Despite the potentially controversial topics that may arise, I think it is important for students to know that writing is a great outlet. As an educator, I feel like it is my duty to not parade around the hardships that my students maybe encountering, but to recognize that it is a real life situation in which, they should not be ignored. I have learned that developing a process in which free writing is available is an important step for students to become good writers and enjoy it as well. A healthy classroom community in which the students feel comfortable feeding and retaining from one another is an important attribute in the classroom that I hope to incorporate. The social interaction and discussion in the classroom will help students to be more clear and deliberate in their writing.

From Burnt to Savory

I had a difficult time starting this multimodal project. It wasn't until we had a conversation in the classroom about who our audience could be until I found my beginning ideas. I decided to do my project on learning how to cook and my audience is my future family. They were my motivation in how I chose to design my pictures, songs, and narration.
When I thought about someone who is in the semiotic domain of cooking, I immediately thought of my mother. Not only is she a great cook, but she also provided family dinners every night for our family. According to Gee, I guess you could say she was the producer and I was the consumer. Arriving into this semiotic domain was new for me and there was a lot to learn. My mom was patient with my "illiteracy" in the realm of cooking and I used "external viewing" in order to understand or hear the perspective of my mom and her knowledge of how to cook.
I designed my pictures at first to show how my "identity" in the world now is very much microwavable friendly. Then I found some pictures off google images to show how I see myself being much different in the future. My goal is to one day fit into the affinity group of those who know how to cook meals comfortably. I know that the more time I spend and the more experiences I have in the kitchen the more I will be able to pick up. I did not direct my project for those in the affinity group of cooking, it is directed towards those who will one day appreciate that I learned how to cook so that we could have family dinners, my future family. In attempting to be "multimodal", I made videos of how I am now and I chose songs that would fit. The narration was supposed to line up but unfortunately the more I played with it the more I felt like I was messing it up more.
To be honest, I definately entered in to the semiotic domain of movie making, and I had to learn from a to z how to go about making a movie. In doing this project, not only did I learn how to cook, but I also have learned everything from scratch how utilize windows movie maker, gabcast, and audio devices. I was constantly challenged throughout this project and now that I feel that I have had a taste of what making a movie feels like in the end, I don't think this is going to be my last time. I will continue to learn more about making a movie and cooking a meal and maybe someday I will be apart of a new semiotic domain, one that see's cooking and movie making as a "natural and normal" task.

digital documentary

I feel like I was behind even before I started because it took me a while longer to decide what I wanted to write about. Learning how to take care of a rat problem was not something that I really wanted to elaborate too much on in a digital documentary. When I finally felt convinced I had chosen the right learning process it was because I had figured out who my audience was. I felt much more confident with where I wanted to go and how I wanted to portray myself when i knew who I was talking to. This last weekend I finally got all of my pictures taken and I am just beginning the process of laying out where I want to put my pictures, what I want to say about them and what music I want to play. I have a plan, butI dont know if it is going to work because I have never done something like this before. I am going to attempt it, and roll with the punches I guess.

Cultural Models...

The idea of cultural models that Gee is generating much of his focus in this chapter on is fascinating to me. "People that have no cultural models would have to think everything out for themselves minute by minute when they attemp to act."(p. 146) This is nearly impossible to do in our world today. We are constantly bombarded with something on the outside that makes up who we are. It is a neat thing to see that who we are and who we will become is who we have been surrounded with in the past, present, and the future. How we will change in the future will be in large part due to how our cultural models change. I think that rather than saying that cultural models are good or bad, I would just say that our paying attention to what they are and how they affect us in life is extremely important. This idea really makes me shiver when I think of how many people there are and how many differences we have. Embracing those differences and allowing people who are different from you to teach you more about life is such a cool thing. By teaching I feel like I am doing this for a living. The diversity (not only in race) of my students will be a challenge for sure, but I am excited to see how they are able to shape who I am as a teacher and as a person.

like reading a videogame manual....

"While video games actively encourage such situated and embodied thinking and doing, school often does not." (pg. 87) The lack of analytical thinking in curriculum is a huge problem. Throughout this chapter there were many examples that were given to provide evidence for the type of situated and embodied learning that has proven to be effective with children and adults. It was also mentioned that the traditional way of viewing learning is not as effective if we want to teach our students to be lifetime learners. I feel like the embodied learning reflects a lot of the ideas of the constructivist learning theory, in which we add new experiences with which we already know. As teachers I feel like we need to reflect more on the embodied action and spend more time in designing a means for students to be able to construct their learning so that they dont look at a textbook the same way I would look at a videogame manual. We need to set up the stage, use terminology that they can understand so that they can grasp the bigger concepts in subjects such as science or economics.

hmm... videogames and reading.

I think a lot of things in life are good, but in moderation. I still feel this way with videogames. The first chapter of this book has definately allowed me to see videogames in a new light. Children are dedicated to learning them, and this teaches them what dedicated learning looks like. I think that this can be used as a positive tool when trying to explain what it may take to read or write. It takes dedication and hard work, just as videogames do. Students would then say, "But videogames are fun and I don't have fun when I read or write." This is the hard part as teachers. Trying to find a way to make curriculum just as fun as videogames seems to be silly, but it is a way to reach out to the students and spark their desire to learn things such as reading and writing. I am interested to continue reading further and to see whether or not the author has an answer to "how might this be possible to spark a child's interest to read just as a child's interest is sparked by videogames?"

Unwanted house guests.

Growing up in a newly developed suburban area in Pleasanton really didn't prepare me for what I have had to confront over the last few monthes. It all started with my roommate actually witnessing a live rodent jump out of her hamper and into her closet. It was then that we knew there must be a problem. My three other roommates are all clueless as well when it comes to this kind of maintenance. We called our landlord and she placed sticky mouse traps around the house, but up until today they still have not worked. After so long of hearing them in our walls, we have started to go a little mad. One morning my roommate woke me up and she somehow persuaded me to help her bang on the oven because she was convinced that there was one living in there. Sure enough a HUGE rat comes jolting out (there is no way our little sticky mouse traps were going to work on this thing!). We caught the rat with a spagetti strainer and covered it with a crate. We had trapped it, but we didn't know what to do with it. We came back later that day and the rat had escaped, it chewed through the crate, which is extremely thick plastic. Since then we have been learning different tactics of how to get rid of rats. We are planning on switching up the environment because that is was rats rely due to their blindness. Then we are going to put poison underneath the house and rat traps in places they wouldn't expect. I'm still in the process of learning what it takes to be rid of rats. This is something I never thought I'd do, but im researching about rats, we are determined to not have anymore unwanted house guests. I guess I will keep you updated.

my first time

cool... my first blog.