This summer at the LRSD/UALR Cyber Teachers Program has been a very challenging and rewarding experience for me. The time that I have spent in class this summer has given me a new appreciation of the world of technology and the many ways it is used in our lives day to day. Where would the world be now without technology? If I had to single out one aspect of the class that gave me a different prospective about technology and how it is used, it would be when the class viewed the video of Thomas L. Friedman speaking at MIT about his book, “The World is Flat.” His prospective of how technology is bringing the people and places of this world closer was simply amazing. The comments he made were mind altering. Technology has globalized the world. It has changed my viewpoint of technology and erased the fear of not wanting to dive in and learn more about working with computers. I became aware of my need to learn more about technology and what it can do for me not only on my job, but in my everyday life because it is present and being used every day, whether I like it or not. The time that I have spent in this class has been well worth the effort. As a person with little computer experience, being in this class has increased my confidence and has motivated me to the point where I want to learn more. The information we learned using Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word will be extremely helpful to me to motivate my students to learn more at school. And of course learning the basics of web design was simply awesome. The instructors were very patient as they help navigate us through this course. The friendships that were established between the participants in the class will be forever memorable. I would recommend this course to any teacher or other professional as a way to enhance their knowledge of technology.
Today we did a session on stress management. We discussed things that bought on stress and how we react when we are feeling stress and worry. During our discussion we found that it is not good to let the things we face in our everyday lives put undo stress on us. We learned that stress and worry bring on many negative things that are not beneficial to us if we let this happen. We were asked to visit www.mindtools.com and write about something that we might find helpful on this site in this blog. I found this article to be interesting:
Locus of Control
Finding Out Who’s in Charge of Your Destiny
As the environment around you changes, you can either attribute success and failure to things you have control over, or to forces outside your influence. Which orientation you choose has a bearing on your long-term success.
This orientation is known as your “locus of control”. Its study dates back to the 1960s, with Julian Rotter’s investigation into how people’s behaviors and attitudes affected the outcomes of their lives.
Locus of control describes the degree to which individuals perceive that outcomes result from their own behaviors, or from forces that are external to themselves. This produces a continuum with external control at one end and internal control at the other:
People who develop an internal locus of control believe that they are responsible for their own success. Those with an external locus of control believe that external forces, like luck, determine their outcomes.
The article also had an interactive quiz for determining your current Locus of Control. After taking the quiz I found that I had an Internal Locus of Control (moderate). The article give benefits for have an Internal Locus of Control and also made note of some things you should be aware of to help yourself be mindful of others if you fall into this category. I encourage all to visit the site and find this article under stress management, take the quiz and see what is your Locus of Control!
Today was a very interesting and engaging day as we continue to learn excel and the ground works of web page design, but the purpose of this blog is to comment on professional development. One of the most meaniful professional development courses that I have attended was “Understanding Teaching African American Male Students.” I like this course because the content was relevant to the make-up of my classroom. The population of the students in the Alternative Learning Envirnoment are mainly black males. The course gave different perspectives of learning from the students point of view. The course provided participant the opportunity to learn from role playing. The course gave participants the opportunity to talk about the problems they face in with engaging these students in learning and offered alternative methods to go along with what the teacher was currently doing in their classroom. The course offered encouragement to teachers that are faced with what they feel is a most difficult task by helping them understand the culture of these students and what it takes to get this population of students to
let the teacher inside their world so that they can get the most out of their classroom experiences.
Today we begin our second week of cyberschool. We started off the morning with everyone doing a brief two minute introduction of themself. Again, this was a fun activity and help everyone relax before we begin to work in excel doing our checkbook. I got confused doing this exercise because I couldn’t remember how to copy my previous page and start a new page to put information in for a new month. David worked with me after class and I got myself at a point where I could start, now I just have to practice a little more so I can become more familar with what I am suppose to be doing. After lunch we begin to go over the terminology we need to become familar with to design a web page. After, we look at Dreamweaver, which is the software we will be using when we design our web page. This week brings more challenges in the world of technology. Practice, practice and more practice is the order of the week!!
After completing one week of class it was a big relief to be off for the weekend. My brain was on overload and I felted somewhat stressed because of all the information I was trying to remember. It is very empowering to gain knowledge, but it does not come without a cost. So with that said and done, the purpose of this blog is the tell what is my favorite web-site. I don’t have a favorite web-site per say, but there is one that I visit often, so I guess it might qualify as one of my favorites, it is: http://www.beliefnet.com/nl/beliefnet/090620_cymbalta.html? I like this web-site because of the content. One of the things I enjoy doing on the web-site is looking at “A Touch of Encouragement” which shows inspiring videos by Martha Williamson who produced “Touched by An Angel.” The site gives inspiration based on spirituality, faith, and a belief in a higher power.
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
-Sally Berger
Today we were ask to answer the following question: “What is my listening challenge? After some thought I decided to look up the definition to listening. This is the definition I found on the web: the act of hearing attentively; “you can learn a lot by just listening”; “they make good music–you should give them a hearing”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn The definition led me to think that it is up to me to determine what I decide to hear attentively or give my attention to. The act of listening is totally up to me to determine the value and purpose of why I need and chose to listen. My biggest obstacle to listening is that I refuse to come into the present. I must come to the understanding of what I am doing at the present moment is what I should be giving my attention to. So many times I let things that I have no control over at one particular moment control my thoughts
and prevent me from giving the task at hand the attention that is required to receive what is neccessary at that particular moment. I must learn that I can only give my full concentration to one task at a time, which is the greatest factor on determining how successful I will be.
We begin day 3 in cyberschool by reviewing things that everyone should know how to do on their computer. This was some very helpful information and will be very useful in the future for me when I use my computer. We also learned about web browsers and search engines, but our assignment for this blog was to write what we think self -initiated learning mean to you. My first thoughts on self-initiated learning is to think of it as the ability to motiviate yourself in an area of learning that you as an individual feel as being important enough to look into to find out more about something that you want or need to know more about. But to put it in more simple terms, I would say it is just one’s personal desire to want to discover.
Today we started our class doing an activity that helped us become familiar with each other by learning names. This was a challenging yet fun activity as we got in a circle and begin to say our name and each individual repeated everyone’s name individually. The activity was a very good stress reliever, because it gave everyone the opportunity to put names with faces and become more comfortable with each other in our class. Now, on to technology. Today we begin by learning Internet terminology. Learning terminology is important because it takes the complications out of using the computer and gives you a sense of confidence which is very important to a novoice like myself. Later we were introduced to graphic designs in order to begin gaining the skills that are needed to design a web pages. This is going to be interesting, practice, practice, and more practice.
“Friendship is essential to the soul”
At last the big day has come, my first day in LRSD/UALR Cyber Teacher Program. I applied for this program with the expectations of knowing that I must improve in the area of using more technology as a teaching tool to promote academic learning in my classroom. I know that participating in this program will be a challenge for me, but I also understand the benefits of increasing my knowledge in the use of technology. It will not only be beneficial to me, but also the population of students I am teaching in the Alternative Learning Environment. These student enter my classroom with not only behavior problems, but most of them struggle with the challenges that come with learning in the traditional classroom setting. These students can learn, but some have problems with learning in the regular classroom environment or with the style of teaching that is promoted in the classroom they came from. I have become aware that the students are highly motivated when it comes to working on the computer. They are experts in the area of finding games and music. It is my desire to use that same motivation they have when it comes to playing games and music to promote learning and spark their interest in other academic subject areas to promote academic achievement.
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