My Google Reader

So I managed to again put off doing the assignment for this class until the day it is due. I dread doing the assignment all week long because I'm sure that I will mess everything up and get frustrated and that it will just ruin my day. I don't know why I wait so long, because it ends up not being as scary as I anticipated.

I actually kind of enjoyed doing this assignment. I found some interesting feeds that I would actually like to follow.

The first one is so fun to read because the guy who writes it has such an interesting, engaging tone of voice--but the feed is also useful. He talks about how to use E-Pal and twitter in the classroom. He discusses how to make TOEFL students be more involved in speaking in the classroom. He evaluates the Callan method of teaching. He talks about the mistakes he has made as a teacher and what he has learned from them. I think this will be helpful, and I look forward to reading what he has to say in the future.

The second feed I subscribed to has all kinds of useful posts. It shows you where to find texts to fit your lesson plans. It tells you how to measure the difficulty of vocabulary in a text. It tells you when there are free online courses that may be useful to teachers. It talks about using facebook for teaching. Pretty much, it directs your attention to interesting articles courses and conferences that would benefit teachers.

The third feed I chose is somehow connected to NCTE. I have high expectations for the usefulness of this feed because every time I do research on teaching, I end up finding really good articles from the NCTE journal. The feed has a variety of ideas to use _____ in the classroom. For example, it evaluates the good and bad points of ReadWriteThink.org. It explores how to deal with plagiarism in the classroom. There is one post that reviews key information from 2009. I think this will be a great resource.

The fourth feed I subscribed to give tips on resume writing for teachers. It has strategies and example resumes. It has different posts for elementary school teachers, high school teachers, substitute teachers, etc. This will help me in the near future when I want to apply for teaching jobs.

My fifth subscription is actually more linguistically based and not really geared toward technology. However, I believe it will still be a useful tool. I have recently become aware of the great need for teachers to recognize the issues of dialects in the classroom. I want to keep up on these kinds of discussions, especially now that I am no longer taking classes that focus on that aspect of language and teaching English.

I also subscribed to two class blogs from last semester. One of them was from my teaching grammar class, and I will be interested to see what else is added to the blog. I took a teaching writing class as well last semester, but I really struggled with it--that is why I subscribed to the blog for the 2010 semester class. I want to review the blog posts and the readings for the class in hopes that I will be able to figure it out better the second time around.

What I Hope to Learn

I am probably not alone when I say that technology scares me a little bit. I am not very confident in learning new technology information on my own. I always have my husband or father or even 13-year-old brother to help me, so I usually rely on them to teach me what I do not know, or even to do technological tasks for me. (At least I am not as bad as my mom, who doesn't even know how to watch a DVD on a television she has owned for at least 3 years.)

Last semester, I took two English teaching classes that required posting on the class blogs and wikis to earn participation points. Well, I was so intimidated by these assignments, that I constantly put off doing them until I lost points and finally had to get my act together and learn how to post to the blogs and wikis for those class. I probably didn't do everything right, and I know that I posted some information to to the wrong folders and had to ask my teachers to help me right my mistakes. Hopefully the exposure will help me as I create my first ever blog.

This semester, I am eager to learn whatever Brother West has to teach me. I am a beginner when it comes to technology (I have a simple phone and can never figure out how to use my husband's blackberry). I know close to nothing when it comes to technology (except InDesign, because I had to learn it for a class for my minor, which is editing).

I am excited and at the same time a little anxious to take this class. I am afraid that I will not be able to keep up--as I often cannot in classes that require technology, even as simple as googledocs. I don't want to limit my options because I am too afraid to try (and fail) at new things. I want to learn how to use technology better, especially since this is a technology age, and apparently, I will be able to get through to my students better if I use some of that technology in the classroom. I am especially excited to learn how to transfer technological knowelgde to pedagogical pracice in the classroom.