My crew and I set sail from Palos on August 3rd in the year of our Lord, 1492. My three ships, Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria were manned by a crew of about ninety men plus three doctors, a translator, a secretary, an accountant and three servants. We stopped on the island of Grand Canary to repair our ships and gathered provisions on the island of Gomera from whence we commenced our sailing. We were now one month into the expedition and things were going fine. This calm lasted for about one month more, then the crew began to get restless.
I must thank the Pinzon brothers for helping me to get the fleet to settle down and thank God, my Holy Saviour, for bringing the welcome site of land into view not a moment too soon. This was in the wee hours of October 12th and as I mentioned before I believe this was divine intervention and so I named this first island that we sighted, San Salvador. I saw some natives on the island and because I believe that we are somewhere near Japan or China I shall refer to these inhabitants as Indians. We entered the Bay of Bariay which is just off Cuba on October 28th and thinking I was close to the Asian mainland we explored the harbours in the area. We came to an island we called Hispaniola.
Disaster struck on the night of Christmas Eve. I lost one of my ships, the Santa Maria which split apart when it struck a reef near Cap- Haiten. I left about 40 of my men on that island to hunt for gold and the rest of us set off on our return voyage on the two remaining ships.
References
The World Book Encyclopaedia International,(1996) Vol 4.pp207-213.Chicago. http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/columbus.html
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Being an Effective Change Agent
During today’s lecture on research the lecturer mentioned the fact that in completion of training one of our roles would be that of change agents within our schools. He said that we would have to get teachers to share the vision and to engage in some degree of action research and reflective practice if we are to improve student performance. In light of this I thought that it might be helpful to look at the traits that we should possess if we are to be effective change agents.
(Gordon, 2002, p. 466)Lists the following as desirable traits of effective change agents; effective change agents (that’s us) are empathetic, sensitive, open, tolerant flexible, patient, friendly, cooperative and imaginative. They develop and use information to understand situations and identify behaviour patterns. They act in a self-reliant fashion, are bold, risk-taking and initiating.
Additionally, as change agents we need to be ensure that we develop good communication channels such as our blogs and the old tried and true face to face meetings in groups and with individuals and ensure that decisions on the school’s reading programme or policy are made democratically. We also need to share our training so that our colleagues feel competent. Last but not least we need to remember to manage our own enthusiasm so that we can guide an evolution and not start a revolution.
Gordon, J. R. (2002). Organizational Behaviour: A Diagnostic Approach. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
(Gordon, 2002, p. 466)Lists the following as desirable traits of effective change agents; effective change agents (that’s us) are empathetic, sensitive, open, tolerant flexible, patient, friendly, cooperative and imaginative. They develop and use information to understand situations and identify behaviour patterns. They act in a self-reliant fashion, are bold, risk-taking and initiating.
Additionally, as change agents we need to be ensure that we develop good communication channels such as our blogs and the old tried and true face to face meetings in groups and with individuals and ensure that decisions on the school’s reading programme or policy are made democratically. We also need to share our training so that our colleagues feel competent. Last but not least we need to remember to manage our own enthusiasm so that we can guide an evolution and not start a revolution.
Gordon, J. R. (2002). Organizational Behaviour: A Diagnostic Approach. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Blogging and Reader Response
Blogs can help teacher to make activities such as reader response journals less teacher centred and as a consequence may help to reduce some of the inhibitions that some students have towards writing with their teacher as the sole audience, it neutralizes the arena and the teacher becomes a participant in the discussion rather than being the sole critic.
Providing student with an avenue to give and receive feedback from their peers provide(s) a more authentic and powerful motivation for writing and it also provides a platform for language development with authentic conversations.(Handsfield,Dean & Cielocha, 2009).
Teachers could start this activity by showing students how to set up their own blog accounts. Penrod (2007) cited in (Handsfield,Dean & Cielocha, 2009) argued that students who have ownership of their blogs will self monitor their language use partly because they are writing to an authentic and broad audience.
Providing student with an avenue to give and receive feedback from their peers provide(s) a more authentic and powerful motivation for writing and it also provides a platform for language development with authentic conversations.(Handsfield,Dean & Cielocha, 2009).
Teachers could start this activity by showing students how to set up their own blog accounts. Penrod (2007) cited in (Handsfield,Dean & Cielocha, 2009) argued that students who have ownership of their blogs will self monitor their language use partly because they are writing to an authentic and broad audience.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Perceptions of Today’s Digital Students
Perceptions of Today’s Digital Students towards learning and the Internet with eight observations (Frand, 2000) in Flynt & (Brozo, 2010):
1. Computers aren’t technology; they are an assumed part of life.
2. The Internet is better than television, because it allows users to socialize with others.
3. Reality is not viewed as being static due to digital and information manipulation.
4. Doing is more important than knowing, and results and actions are more important than accumulation of facts.
5. Learning more closely resembles video games than logic; because gaming requires a trial and error approach to learning as opposed to traditional ruled based approach to problem solving.
6. Multitasking is a way of life; typing is preferred to handwriting, and keyboarding is an essential skill.
7. Staying connected is essential, and there is very little tolerance for delays.
8. Digital savvy students can be a consumer or a creator.
Our planning needs to take these perceptions into account in planning instruction to keep learning meaningful and relevant so that or students will be engaged.
1. Computers aren’t technology; they are an assumed part of life.
2. The Internet is better than television, because it allows users to socialize with others.
3. Reality is not viewed as being static due to digital and information manipulation.
4. Doing is more important than knowing, and results and actions are more important than accumulation of facts.
5. Learning more closely resembles video games than logic; because gaming requires a trial and error approach to learning as opposed to traditional ruled based approach to problem solving.
6. Multitasking is a way of life; typing is preferred to handwriting, and keyboarding is an essential skill.
7. Staying connected is essential, and there is very little tolerance for delays.
8. Digital savvy students can be a consumer or a creator.
Our planning needs to take these perceptions into account in planning instruction to keep learning meaningful and relevant so that or students will be engaged.
Technology Integration
Technology does not free us from our responsibility of carefully evaluating and assessing our students’ interests, reading level and motivation. In order for students to truly benefit from ICTs in lessons teachers must be active facilitators, providing prompts to scaffold and guide student success. Teachers should not think that they would be passive presenters of technology which will then work some kind of magic on students.
We also need to realistically evaluate the usefulness of the available technology to the instructional objectives which we hope to accomplish.
We also need to realistically evaluate the usefulness of the available technology to the instructional objectives which we hope to accomplish.
Late Introductions
OOPs! I forgot to introduce myself.
Hi, I’m Denise. Most people call me Dee. My blog name is Denian. I have been an educator for the past 19 years. I welcomed this opportunity to become a reading specialist because many of the students at my school are reluctant and/or struggling readers. My concern therefore has always been to help to raise the literacy profile of our students because literacy is knowledge’s highway.
Thus far, I have not been disappointed (in general). I have been trying out some ideas in assessing and addressing student’s individual needs. This course is like the sugar to the blend. Most schools now have computers and internet access so it’s just a matter of negotiating with my colleagues to integrate the available ICTs into reading across the curriculum and to identify how we can move forward in literacy matters.
Hi, I’m Denise. Most people call me Dee. My blog name is Denian. I have been an educator for the past 19 years. I welcomed this opportunity to become a reading specialist because many of the students at my school are reluctant and/or struggling readers. My concern therefore has always been to help to raise the literacy profile of our students because literacy is knowledge’s highway.
Thus far, I have not been disappointed (in general). I have been trying out some ideas in assessing and addressing student’s individual needs. This course is like the sugar to the blend. Most schools now have computers and internet access so it’s just a matter of negotiating with my colleagues to integrate the available ICTs into reading across the curriculum and to identify how we can move forward in literacy matters.
Building a Community of Readers and Writers
I came across an article in a Reading Teacher journal which I thought was very interesting. It involved the creation of an image library by teachers of Pierce (Elementary) School. The images are being used by the school community as illustrations or prompts to create e-books. The e-books created are then viewed on screen, posted online, emailed home or printed and bound.
I think this is a wonderful idea. It appears to me to be a very creative extension of the tried and true language experience approach because the school community provides common experiential knowledge which in itself can be motivating because all students will have the required background knowledge. The creation of these books will therefore be meaningful, authentic and of high interest to the students. The teachers who pioneered this activity found that it was useful for all grade levels and for students of all proficiencies in English.
Creating text about school community allows readers to focus on generating and decoding those words and phrases often included in texts that are not familiar to them (Gabriel& Gabriel, 2010 p.679).....Using computers to write stories and access to digital images gives all students experiences with technology that they may not have access to at home (Tapscot, 1998 in Gabriel and Gabriel, 2010 p.679). Here are a few suggestions from the article on how the school community photos can be used.
• Alphabet books
• Vocabulary books
• Biographies of people, animals or places around the school
• Compare- and-contrast paragraphs, essays and graphs
• Interviews
• News stories
Gabriel, R. &Gabriel,M. (2010, May) .Power in Pictures: How a Schoolwide Photo library can build a Community of Readers and Writers. The Reading Teacher 63(8) pp.679-682.
I think this is a wonderful idea. It appears to me to be a very creative extension of the tried and true language experience approach because the school community provides common experiential knowledge which in itself can be motivating because all students will have the required background knowledge. The creation of these books will therefore be meaningful, authentic and of high interest to the students. The teachers who pioneered this activity found that it was useful for all grade levels and for students of all proficiencies in English.
Creating text about school community allows readers to focus on generating and decoding those words and phrases often included in texts that are not familiar to them (Gabriel& Gabriel, 2010 p.679).....Using computers to write stories and access to digital images gives all students experiences with technology that they may not have access to at home (Tapscot, 1998 in Gabriel and Gabriel, 2010 p.679). Here are a few suggestions from the article on how the school community photos can be used.
• Alphabet books
• Vocabulary books
• Biographies of people, animals or places around the school
• Compare- and-contrast paragraphs, essays and graphs
• Interviews
• News stories
Gabriel, R. &Gabriel,M. (2010, May) .Power in Pictures: How a Schoolwide Photo library can build a Community of Readers and Writers. The Reading Teacher 63(8) pp.679-682.
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