Portfolio/Reflection

Looking back over the course of this semester and the assignments I have completed, I am proud of all I accomplished and learned. From text and article readings to written assignemnts and multimodal projects, I am happy with the time and effort I put forth, as well as the outcomes of each.

From Gee's text, the article readings for Wiki, and Harvery's text, I learned to accept the ways in which we as teachers ask to assess a students learning through multimodal ideas, rather than just plain papers. I learned that in order for students to truly write well, they must write about a passion or a topic of choice, and we must allow them this, with little or no boundaries. Teachers need to work right alongside of their students, both as role models and to assess the assignment they gave in order to understand the challenges and triumphs their students will face.

As for the composition assignments throughout the semester, I learned a lot about myself as a person and as a future teacher through each. The digital document pushed me to "present my knowledge" in a foreign way, through a short film, and it also allowed me to get creative and talk about something that related to my perosnal life. It showed me how fun a "composition" assignment could be when using multimodal sources and relating it to my life and interests. My blogs have really helped me reflect back on readings and assignments and helped my pull key points and concepts I learned from each. Blogs were helpful in narrowing these key points down, and they were a useful line of communication between myself, Pkittle, and my peers. Oh the Wikis! The Wikis were also quite helpful when pulling out important concepts, especially with a few of my assigned articles which were quite long and a few drawn-out. I enjoyed re-capping on each article through my Wikis, and I liked the idea of each group having a Wiki and being able to look at other Wiki summaries of your group members. My memorandum truly helped me in my "professional" realm. I feel confident now if I ever have to write a letter of this or any type that is in this kind of a administrative or professional context. I was also nice because we were able to once again use the Wiki articles we read in the memo, causing me to reflect on the past assignment and take more from it, or take more/analyze more of the key concepts regarding the teachings of writing that I learned from my Wiki articles. I enjoyed the memorandum! And lastly, the assignment sequence! I had a lot of fun working on this assignment, partly because we were allowed to work with a partner, and Jenna and I pushed eachother to get ours finished (so we'd have less to do during finals and all). I believed ours turned out great! And although we both already knew quite a bit about writing lesson plans (due to previous liberal studies courses), we still learned a lot from this one, and Harvey's ideas were easily incorporated into our assignment sequences. Also, I was really happy to have spent so much time looking through the California Language Arts Content Standards and now I feel more knowledgeable in that aspect of language arts. That assignment was challenging, but rewarding and fun!

The work I completed and presented in this class will most definitely be useful in my future. Its utility is going to be of great benefit! As a current college student, I've learned that there are other ways in which to "show" your knowledge. This will also contribute to my future as a teacher, as well as a few other key points, like self-choosing topics and modeling alongside students. With my own students, I will take all of this information and apply it. I honestly have found the information learned in this class, from Wiki article ideas to Harvey's inquiry ideas, interesting and useful, and I will apply them in my practices both as a continuing student and a future teacher.

Thanks so much, Pkittle! Happy summer! And I hope to be seeing you at one of the Northern California Writing Conferences down the road!

Reflecting on memorandum

I am honestly happy that writing a memorandum was an assignment for our class this semester. I believe it has taught me how to write a professional piece of work, and now I am confident if I ever do have to write one in my future education career. Besides learning how to write a professional piece of work, I also learned a ton of new, beneficial information regarding the teaching of writing. This came from the numerous article readings, including mine and those from my peers. The main concepts learned about the teaching of writing that I have incorporated into my memorandum I will take with me into my education career, and hopefully they will put me more at ease when dealing with how to teach writing to elementary students. I found a lot of information useful, and especially hearing first-hand accounts from "current" teachers in the articles gave me ideas and confidence.
Back to the actual memorandum...I am glad we wrote it, even if it was a "mock" memorandum. The "Iraq" example memorandum was helpful to look at, when concerning the structure. I not only learned how to structure the piece of writing, but also how to write in a completely formal matter with a strong background and purpse. I enjoyed this assignment as a whole.

The importance of correctness

I feel as though I am one who writes with correctness via papers, emails, text messaging, etc., almost as though I was OCD about it. Although I feel writing with correctness, such as using correct punctuation, grammer, and spelling, is important with elementary writers, or any writers for the fact of the matter, I strongly believe that the experience of writing is more important than making sure each little piece of one's own writing is correct the first time around. Especially for those elementary writers who aren't always easy to motivate, correctness should be stressed, but not as much as getting ideas onto paper and expressing a topic with passion.
As Silverman states in his text Rules of Thumb, "too much concern about spelling, punctuation, and grammer can inhibit your writing; too little concern can come between you and your readers" (p. 2). I agree with this statement, and I do believe that without paying attention to correctness of writing, the reader(s) will be affected.

Current thoughts on the teaching of writing and its research

I'm not a fan of reading research articles and summarizing them, but I have to admit that this set of articles regarding the teaching of writing (or at least the first three of four that I have read so far) has changed my thoughts a bit. I wasn't a big "writer" in school myself, so I guess I have never really considered the realm of teaching writing, as opposed to the science from the science courses we as liberal studies majors have taken, or the math from math courses or even health, but reading and analyzing these articles so far has me excited, but a little nervous still, to teach writing.
I feel like each article I've read has a different point to it and that each author feels their point should be taken into consideration more so than any of the other authors' points. I've learned that genre is important to consider, and genre is determined or viewed by a student's previous experiences and everyday life. I've also learned that there are topics out there, in this day and age, that are controversial and can be considered "taboo." First hand accounts from teachers have shown me the various opinions teachers have on these "taboo" topics and how and how not they feel their personal opinions affect their students' writing. But from the idea of all these controversial writing topics, I believe I learned most that writing is a form of self-expression, and if a teacher limits or silences a student's writing, the teacher is limiting or silencing a student's self-expression (which is completely opposite of what should be happening!). I have also learned from the articles regarding teaching of writing that writing provides lessons to teachers and students, or writers in general. These lessons are not on the surface, but instead learned from practice and experience, as well as honest feedback and self-reflection/thinking. Teachers need to be writers with their students, in order for their students not to feel as if "they're alone" it what may seem to them as a "scary" blank page.
I have learned a lot from these articles, so far, and I am excited to continue my analysis.

Extra credit (Digital document viewing), Part 2

Opps! I'm Alli's mom, and I made that previous post!

Extra credit (Digital document viewing)

I really enjoyed watching Alli's "digital documentary" on yoga. She has been sharing her progress on this assignment over the past few weeks, and I am glad I was able to see the final product. She gave me a bit of background information on the text she's been reading in class regarding video games and learning and how all of that relates to her digital documentary and her own personal learning experience of yoga. This was an interesting idea for a project!

Reification of my digital document

I am happy to be asked to explain or describe the "humanity" aspect of the reification process of my digital document. The "commodity" or actual product is pretty obvious, but being able to explain the "humanity" aspect makes me, as a student, feel good (like that you actually want to know what we put into it, concerning effort, time, thoughts, challenges, etc.).
Regarding "labor" aspects, I probably worked at least seven hours total on my digital document. I started my project off by, besides picking one topic that I stuck with, writing out my narrative to help create my vision of my document as a movie. After I completed my narrative, I started some filming (with the help of my technology-savy sister), which we did over a two day span (due to lack of digital camera battery). After loading the film and pictures onto my computer, I found some pictures and images from the internet to also use in my document. The portion of this assignment that required most of my time and labor efforts was actually working in Windows Movie Maker. I was not familiar with the program, let alone did I know it existed on my computer. Although I am now glad I know how to create basic movies on the program, I was not too happy at the time, because I was more frustrated at the fact that I had to create a "movie" for a writing composition course (which I now fully and completely understand and agree with, learning more of the assignment's objective in relation to elementary classrooms and students' learning).
Regarding thinking aspects, it did take me awhile to actually figure out "what" I was "learning." I never really thought that I am constantly learning something in life. I always was under the notion that learning was more of a physical thing that was then internalized, and I did not think that learning could be something as simple as "learning how to create personal time for yourself," which is basically what my digital document is about. I used or applied a few of Gee's ideas and concepts, although they aren't exactly and directly mentioned in my document. I believe I mainly focused on Gee's idea of learning something and being able to apply it to different situations, such as learning yoga and breathing techniques and being able to apply them to when I am placed in a stressful situation, etc. Also, I believe I applied Gee's achievement principle, where I as a person gain intrinsic rewards, or stress-free/relaxation time, from the beginning of my practices.
After I actually created a final project or draft of my document, I did feel proud. Proud that I learned a new computer program; proud that I accomplished ayet another assignment written in my planner; proud that I understood the objective of this assignment and believed that I had reached it. Although I was complainig earlier (sorry!) about the point of this project if I was in a composition class, I am extremely glad that this document was assigned. I do realize how important multi-modal learning is and how much of a potential it has when concerning student learning in the classroom, and from doing a multi-modal assignemnt myself, I see how one could learn from it all, especially when considering the many types of learning styles children possess.
I am sure I will have more to say about this assignment later becauase I'm not all that great at writing something under pressure or right after I've been told, just because I don't have each comment or concern regarding the assignment in my thoughts at the moment. I'll blog more later if I can think of more, otherwise, that's pretty much the reification process of my digital document.

Reflecting on digital document

Well, it's going. My narrative went really well, and I think that was the easiest part of this assignment for me. That was the writing part, and if you tell me to write a paper, I'll do it. Concerning this assignment, however, you tell me to create an actualy "digital documentary," and I'll kind of complain. Honestly, I feel like the whole "movie making" aspect of this assignment is not fun and worth my time. Like I said before, I'll easily write you a paper; that's what I can do. Learning how to make a movie for an "Advanced Composition for Future Teachers" class, however, is what seriously frustrates me.
But enough with the venting and on with my reflecting and the actual process of my assignment. Like I said before, my narrative is great. I really like it, and I think I got across my whole "what I'm learning" concept, which kind of goes deeper than the actual, physical activity of yoga, so that's exciting for me. It's a good piece, in my opinion. My sister helped me with my yoga footage and pictures. The filming of it went well, and now we're putting it all on my computer tonight, so hopefully I can actually put the whole thing together and pray that it looks somewhat like my vision. Even if the "visual" aspect of my assignment does not turn out all that great or how I invisioned it to be, I am still proud of my narrative, and I believe I learned so much about myself and applying Gee's concepts just through that.

Learning and action

In Chapter 5 of Gee's text, he states in the second sentence that "On one hand, humans are quite poor at learning from lots of overt information given to them outside the sorts of contexts in which this information can be used" (p. 113). I completely agree. We are given information, since early education, that we cannot apply in their specific contexts because we do not learn them that particular way. Learning, comprehending, and adding information to one's long-term memory require aquiring this new information through a way in which one will remember, such as in its intentional, meaningful context. In order to learn, one must exerpience.
This reminds me to our digital documentary assignment. After hearing and reading about numerous "learning experiences" of my peers, I have concluded that, for the most part, each individual is learning their particular something through actual contact and experience. No matter how many times a person is verbally told how to do a particular task or in what ways to complete a challenge, a first-hand experience is necessary in order for comprehension and actual learning to take place. Learning requires action, or experience.

Situated learning

Although we haven't discussed Gee's topic of "situated meaning and learning" is class yet, I did want to share my perspective of the issue, or what I took from Chapter 4 of Gee's text. Gee states that the Situated Meaning Principle is the "meanings of signs (words, actions, objects, artifacts, symbols, texts, etc.) are situated in embodied experience. Meanings are not general or decontextulized. Whatever generality meanings come to have is discovered bottom up via embodied experiences" (p. 108). This large and detailed explanation basically told me that the meaning of something, such as a symbol or a piece of text, is explained through one's previous experience. Meanings of things are important, and they are not just general and mean nothing. Meanings represent understanding. I agree with what Gee has said about situated learning, that is if I am comprehending it correctly.

Video games

Honestly, I haven't always been a big fan of video games, especially since my future professional goal of elementary education hasn't been seen as a big supporter of children sitting in front of a television for hours on end, instead of doing something that will benefit them, like reading. With that said, I wasn't all that excited about starting to read Gee's text, What Video Games have to Teach us about Learning and Literacy. I didn't want to read a book about some author telling me why video games are good for children.
After reading chapter one, my views have turned a bit, and I actually do want to continue reading Gee's book. After today's class discussion on claims Gee made in chapter one, I wanted to read on into chapter two to hear what Gee had to say about semiotic domains and whether or not playing video games is a waste of time. Though my views on this issue are becoming more open, thanks to Gee, I still am a little apprehensive to just let my beliefs about video games go. I will read Gee's text with open ears and an accepting mind, and I hope to really analyze what Gee has to say. After all, if he can claim all of the claims we thought of in class, he must have an argument that he wants those who oppose the idea of video games to see, like myself.

Learning something new

Currently, it's hard for me to think of a specific "something" that's new to me that I'm in the process of learning. I haven't taken up any new hobbies in awhile, which probably points out that I should, and I haven't tried anything lately that I've never done before, like skateboarding or knitting. One thing I guess I am hoping to "re-learn" is dance, more specifically jazz or lyrical. I was a dancer for seven years, during my junior high and high school years, and I have really missed that form of expression in my life. Therefore, I have put some effort forth in finding a good dance studio in Chico. I have located one, Hype Dance Studio, but I need to still see, for the college level, how advanced you have to be, since I haven't jazz/lyrical danced for years, let alone busted out a pique, piroette, or even the simplest split leap. So, I guess I'm "re-learning" jazz dance, all to make me happy, do something for myself in my hectic life, and create a place for personal expression, and I'm really excited about it.

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