How to set your google slides to 20 seconds...

Thanks for this, April!

1. On the home page of your slide show, click "file"
2. on the drop down menu, click "publish to the web"
3. On the pop up, click "start slideshow as soon as the player loads" (don't worry about the timer yet....)
4. copy and paste the shareable link into another place (i put it in my blog as an unedited post)
5. The last part of the link should be a number (the default is 3000, meaning 3 seconds).  Change that to "20000", meaning 20 seconds

Thinking about Pecha Kucha...

As you start to wrap your head around the Pecha Kucha presentation, here are some tips and suggestions to get you started...

First Watch this PK for the overview:



But don't get overwhelmed by his uber-professional presentation.  Think of this as a master class in PK Presentation Style.  What do you notice that makes his presentation successful?

Then watch this PK that is a little less intimidating:

What do you notice about what makes this effective and what she (you) could do differently to make sure that meaning is conveyed in a more efficient and engaging way? I think that there are easy ways to improve this, and thinking about them will really help you with your own PK.

Let's try to use the comments below to brainstorm strategies for success and questions.  I promise to participate as well!

Have a good week!  See you on the 18th.

LB :)

Final Project Assignment

FINAL PROJECT 

All semester we have been reading about new ways to think, new ways to frame, new ways to reflect, new contexts to consider, new issues to contemplate in order to better approach our teaching as a reflective practice.  Lilia Bartolome (1999) suggests that in order to improve the teaching and learning in our classrooms, we need to get beyond the “methods fetish” and instead, “shift our perspective” to look to the social and cultural contexts in which we teach. She argues that

“…a necessary first step in reevaluating the failure or success of particular instructional methods used with subordinate students calls for a shift in perspective — a shift from a narrow and mechanistic view of instruction to one that is broader in scope and takes into consideration the sociohistorical and political dimension of education…” (176)

Per her charge, our course has taken a largely theoretical approach, pushing us to have conversations about how we see teaching, learning, our students and ourselves.

For the final project in SED 561, I want you to make theory into practice.

OPTION #1:  CURRICULUM

Create something new/revise something old.  (De)design a new lesson, unit, or curricula of some kind that reflects the work we have done this semester.  You can use the Rethinking Schools website (or any other resources you find) for ideas if you want, or create something from scratch.  Be true to your content area, and design something that takes into account the issues of privilege, power and difference we have discussed this term. Or revisit something that you know you could do better now that you know what you know. 

OPTION #2:  PEDAGOGY

Reimagine the WAY you plan, prep, organize, connect, evaluate, discipline, assess.  This option is about the HOW, rather than the WHAT.  Write up a new action plan that explains what you used to do, what you plan to do differently, and why drawing from our course texts and discussions.

OPTION #3:  PRACTICE

Teach others about what we have learned.  Create a PD for colleagues that helps them take the things we have learned this semester into their own classrooms. Be specific and focused in this option — no one can learn everything in an hour so be selective and what the share and how.

OPTION #4:  REFLECTION

Look inward.  Write about who you are as a teacher and how the things we have read this semester influence how you think about who you are and who you want to be as a teacher. Think of this as a Teaching Philosophy, or a Statement of Pedagogy.

OPTION #5:  ANYTHING ELSE

Show me what you know.  Use any format you want to take our course material and make it real for you and your students.

In all of these options, I want you to be able to demonstrate the following:

⇒   Knowledge of and fluency in at least 4 of our course texts

⇒   Gestures to as many other texts as you can muster

⇒   Self reflection (lots of “I” voice”)

⇒   Connections to your day to day teaching life

You can demonstrate these core tenets of our course in a reflective writing piece that accompanies your project or in the text of the project itself.  Feel free to use multimedia options (powerpoint, video, blog, photographs, or other creative designs) as you pull together your ideas.  I really hope that you can find a way to approach this so that it does not feel like busy work for me, but instead is cumulative, reflective work for you to get something concrete out of this seminar.  Make it real for you.

You will also be presenting this work in the form of a Pecha Kucha on the last week of class.  Details to follow.

Responses from class...

Notes on responding to sentiments...


"Gay Marriage agenda"

• I am not taking a stand on anything.  The supreme court took the stand and now I am just stating a point of fact.  Staying silent is still taking a stand.  There is no neutral.

"Children at any age shouldn't be educated about that..."

• ignorance leads to misunderstanding and hatred

"Natural way of loving someone"

• Who decides what is natural?  Church says it is procreative only. What does naturally mean?  What are the different kinds of love?
• In 2015, in this country, our supreme court has dictated that people who love each other are allowed to get married.  
• In nature, there are other species that love each other who are not opposite sexes.
• Studies show that 10% of the population is gay.

"Not our responsibility to expose kids to this issue.."

• Danger of a single story...
• Exposure is just another view point
• If not our responsibility, then whose is it?
• If 10% of the population is gay, then I am only talking about something that they are already exposed to in their families, communities, friendships, self.

Some key sentence starters:

• "Some people believe..."
• "In this country, in 2015..."
• "Everyone has the right to feel safe in this classroom.  So..."
• Windows and mirrors:  we know that everyone needs an opportunity to see him/herself in the curriculum.
• 
  

confessions of a reflective practitioner

Hi folks,

Loved reading your blogs, as I always do.  I know that the LGBT content this week is a mine field for many of you and you were so honest and thoughtful in taking it up in your writing.

Last week in class I promised I would share a little bit of my own reflective practice story after you shared so much about yourselves in your Choices in Context papers.  So here is an article I wrote quite some times ago (2007) that details many of my own choices in context.  I know you will hear echoes of our authors here, if not explicit reference to them.  Would be happy to talk about any of it with you if you have questions or comments!

See you tomorrow!

LB :)

Thought you would find this interesting...

This is a video posted by a Texas mom, looking at the "Patterns of Immigration" in the United States.  This feels like a different kind of colorblindness than what we were talking about last week, but this certainly shows the power of language in defining (or erasing) people and their histories.

interesting resources

Tim Wise, on Affirmative Action

Boler, Affirmative Action Pedagogy

I conceptualized and argued for an “affirmative action pedagogy” to illustrate how social hierarchies confer unequal weight and legitimacy to different voices, making dialogue a difficult ideal to achieve in our classrooms. Just as affirmative action seeks to redress historically embedded inequities, so do I suggest that there are times when countering dominant cultural beliefs (especially within the abbreviated time space of a classroom) may require privileging traditionally silenced voices (vii).

New Class Location

Hi all,

I send you a text today but wanted to confirm that we are meeting today  in Sherlock Center, room 017 from 4:20-6:50.

Here is the RIC Map.  If you turn right to head to East Campus off College Road, you follow the street all the way back past the REC Center.  Sherlock Center is next to BLDG 8.

See you in a bit!

LB :)

If you want your blog to be private...

If you want to make your blog private, so that only we (in this class) can read it, then you have to invite us to be readers of your blog and we each have to accept your invitation.  To do so you will need all of our email addresses so that you can invite each of us.  (Email list is missing Sheena so you will have to make sure to add her after she sees this!)




Here are instructions for making your blog private.  You do so in the SETTINGS feature.

Here is a list of emails to cut and paste into the BLOG READERS box in your Permissions Settings.

scholarina@gmail.com, ejohnson954@gmail.com, mariannemkirby@gmail.com, nancy.e.breault@gmail.com, cmarsh@blackstonevalleyprep.org, aprildtanguay@gmail.com, Smemerson46@gmail.com, dflima1@gmail.com, dharr99@gmail.com

Leave a comment if you have any questions!

LB :)

Welcome to SED 561!!

Welcome to this SED 561 blogging adventure!

Sometime prior to or during our first night of class, you will set up your own blog to use this semester for all of your Talking Points assignments, and to keep track of your thoughts about any of the issues we cover.

A blog is your very own, personal online journal. It is public, in that I and your classmates can read it and comment on it, but it is your space and you can control most everything about it. (If you want to make it private so that *only* members of this class can read it, I can show you how to do so).

In the context of this course, your blog has two purposes:

1) Your blog will provide a space for you to keep all of your Talking Points assignments over the course of our semester together. You will not hand in written assignments to me each week; rather you will post them on your blog. In this sense, your blog is like an assignment notebook that you will use as you read and prepare for class each week. You will also be posting any additional thoughts you have: responses to class discussion, after thoughts, things you forgot to say in class, relevant experiences you have, etc.

But importantly, your blog is a public space and as you post (and comment on others'), you will gain a much richer understanding of everything we read and discuss in class. I want you to think of it as interactive and intertextual in that way.

2) Creating your own blog will also introduce you to the blogisphere if you don't know this place already. I hope that you will discover creative educational uses for this online medium. You will see how easy it is to use blogger.com, and perhaps it will inspire you to bring blogs into your own classroom.

To start your own blog, you will go to:

www.blogger.com

 

If you do not already have a Google account, you will need to create one.  If you do have a Google account, sign in in the box at the right.  This will allow you to create your own blog on a site called blogger.com.   

Click the button that says NEW BLOG (you will see this even if you have blogged before) and follow the instructions to get started.  Don't forget your Username and Password!! You will need them to login everytime. Please write them down on the top of your syllabus so you don't forget!  

As you fill in the info, you will be asked to give your blog a TITLE. This title will appear at the top of your blog. (Mine is called "SED 561: Sociocultural Theory...")

Then, you need to choose an address: http://_______.blogspot.com  This will be the web address associated with your site. You can call it anything you like. Be clever or simple (or both) -- it is up to you. Write it down so you don't forget it! (You can also find it later on in your Dashboard where all of your future blogs will be listed.)  

You will also need to choose a design template for your blog. Look through the options listed and see what appeals to you. You can change this later so don't worry too much about it initially... Once you have the account set up, you can start posting. A “posting” is an entry on your blog. (For clarification, you have one blog, but many postings). Give the post a title and then compose as you would any journal entry. When you are finished, hit the button at the bottom that says Publish. It will not appear on your blog until you publish it. You can always go back and edit old posts and create new ones.

Your First Post:

Your first post should be a short introduction to you: who are you, where you teach, why you decided to do a graduate school right now, what you do in your spare time, etc. (Just a short paragraph — no big deal). You will post the rest of the entries as they are due (see course syllabus for dates), or whenever you have something to say.
 

When you are done creating your site and posting your first entry, please come back to this blog and post a comment at the end of my first posting (scroll down) that includes your blog address so that I can post it in the link list to the right.

Some Tips and Helpful Hints:

• Once you are in your blog, look at the top right corner of the screen. If you click on the word DESIGN, you will be able to make design changes, create new posts, edit old posts, etc. (You can only do this if you are logged in to your blog.)
• Once you are in the DESIGN screen, you can do all kinds of things to make your blog a bit more interesting. Change your fonts and colors, edit a post, change your settings. See the tabs at the top of the screen for all kinds of options.
• Poke around online and make a list of websites related to education, media literacy, social justice or anything else relevant and post them on your blog. You can add all kinds of things by ADDING A GADGET from your LAYOUT screen.
• Just do the best you can with this. If you get stuck, don't fret... I am happy to help you anytime as you work on getting this started. And remember: you can't break it. It is just a blog. Everything can be changed if need be!

Good luck!! 

 LB :)