Conference Day

Today was Conference Day. For the most part, it was interesting, but I would have rather been in class. I used the Notes app on my ITouch, and tried to email the notes to my account. I believed that it was there, but when I opened the email tonight, it wasn't there. So I did my Wordle based on my memory of key words and phrases. Here it is:

Just curious. When and where would you use a Wordle?

Writing Process Blog

Last night, I emailed Barb about my Writing Process blog to see if I was on the right track. I'm really glad I did, because it turns out I wasn't! I was putting too much emphasis on the brain functions relating to writing, and none on the AT and the specific disabilites that affect the writing process.

So late last night, I scrapped the blog, and started fresh this morning around 7am. I had already done a lot of research on the brain processes related to writing, so that section went quicker than the others. I worked on it literally all day long, and was satified with it around 8pm (about 13 hours later). I emailed Barb to make sure that there wasn't any glaring omissions, but barring that, I am satified with the look and content of my Writing Process blog.

It involved a LOT of work to be only worth 20% of my total mark. I think it should be worth a little more, because of all the research that had to go into it. But oh well!

New Book I'm Reading

I'm reading the most fascinating book. It's called 'Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the way they learn' by Larry D. Rosen, Ph.D. It's about how educators should be enbracing technology, such as Wireless Mobile Devices, and using them in their day to day teaching (sound familar, anyone?)

The most interesting statement that the book has said so far (I'm only on page 71 out of 226) is, and I quote: "The research does demonstrate rather convincingly that students who communicate during a learning experience (including texting) perform equally as well as those who just read the material and have no outside communication-it just takes them longer to finish the assignment." Kinda of pulls the rug out from under the traditionalist way of teaching, doesn't it?

It also states that teachers should embrace the social netwroking sites, such as facebook, as a means of communicating with their students. In one example, a teacher created a group on Facebook about a particular novel the class was reading, and told his students that he expected everyone to respond to at least one comment.

The results of this were amazing: the students actually read the book (instead of using online summeries or Cliff Note apps), and it promoted class discussion regarding the text.

In summary, this is a great book that I would highly recommend to anyone thinking of using the student's technology in the classroom. The link for those of you interested in buying this book is on the side  under 'Websites to Visit'.

Working Memory

Today I worked on the Working Memory part of my Writing Process blog. It took quite a while to research throroughly. I'm going to work on Executive Processes next.

Hilarous Song About Working Memory

I was browsing youtube for working memory videos and I found this video. I'm going to post it on my writing process blog as well. Enjoy!!!!

The Writing Process

Today was a discussion about the writing process and the brain. There is quite a bit of processing that goes on everytime we ask a student to write; therefore there is a lot of areas that students could experience difficulties in. I was surprised at the number of brain functions that go on before and after we pick up the pencil.

There is a huge number of processes that go on before we pick up that pencil, and they often happen in mircoseconds. We don't even realize just how much processing has to go on in the split second before we pick up the pencil. No wonder there are so many children that have difficulty with the writing process!

Class Sharing of Favourite Apps

Our class shared a number of fantastic apps today in class. There was a wide selection of apps that my colleagues had found that support relunctant readers. I downloaded a few of the free apps mentioned!

My favourites were the relaxation ones. There are so many apps that help people relax and calm down!! Says a lot about society today, though....

None of us realized what time is was until Barb was startled that it was 11:30, and we had just finished sharing our apps! We began to have an overview of the Writing Process; however, we just barely scratched the surface before it was time to go. Ah, well, there's always tomorrow....