Fakebook-thing

This idea for a lesson really interested me, mostly because it's something that has a lot of range for use in the classroom. I have seen a bunch of internet comics that use the concept of a fake facebook to make a page for famous people, but i had never thought to use it in a class before. This and comic life are two programs that i'll almost definitely use when i'm a teacher simply for the fact that there are so many possibilities and freedom for the student's project and it would be a fun way to show comprehension of a story. Other than that, i can't really think of a good way to incorporate it for classroom use...thoughts?

Philosophy in high school: thoughts?

When i was in high school, the only real idea of philosophy I had was that old greek guy Socrates and a vague concept about the ideas of philosophy like "nothing is real." Then I got here and took a philosophy class my sophomore year here and I realized what i had been missing. It really does make you think more "out of the box" and that's kind of what critical thinking is all about.
I just thinking how helpful to would have been to be exposed to that line of thought before I got to college, anyone think the same?

Newsletter

For one of my classes, we have to do this newsletter assignment. It's also an education class, and deals with technology in the classroom, but it approaches it a lot differently. For instance, this newsletter assignment is about basically making a school paper like they use to bring around for students to buy. I like the idea of it, but it's also really...meaningless.

We've all known about the different tools that tools like Word offer to make your document look nicer, and that's basically all this is. I haven't gotten anything new out of doing this project. When the professor announced the assignment, my first thought was "alright, this could be kind of neat to work on" and then i read the instructions and all we have to do is make a couple borders around somethings and change the page color (more or less). I didn't have to use one tool in Word that i wasn't already acquainted with from high school, which made me think about high school a little bit.

Remember back in the day when we got those assignments that no body liked to do, but it seemed like every teacher thought it was a great idea? That's pretty much how i felt about doing this assignment. Which made me think "wow, when I'm a teacher, i never want to put my students through this feeling." So i guess that's why i seem to get excited about project that are more open range, with a lot of freedom of what you can do for it, because you can actually do something you enjoy, instead of just putting a border around a document.

comical

Of the presentations that we had today in class, i feel the one that i am most likely to use is the Comic Life lesson that Ryan presented. Altered of course, because i feel like 12-14 class days is excessive to spend on one simple project. i feel that humor belongs in the classroom though, i plan to incorporate it as much as i can once i actually begin teaching, and the comics idea is a good way to let the students have fun with a project they're doing. If you don't enjoy doing something, the quality of it is going to be far lower than if you put your heart into it.  

in class use of tools

Friday we talked a little bit about students who may not have access to the internet or the technology in the classroom at home. I think that it is important to keep this in mind, but we can't simply rule out the use of these technologies because of that. I think that class time should be regulated in such a way so that the class can go to the computer labs of the school, and it makes take time, but it's important to introduce these changes/new tools to the students. A class to introduce the tool, another to answer any questions and straighten things out, and another class or two to do their assignment.