Sweeney Todd

I am so in love with this movie. I have seen it twice now and have listened to the soundtrack and I have to say that I am completely in love with this movie. I have loved Johnny Depp for awhile and am developing quite a girl-crush on Helena Bonham-Carter. They are both so fantastic in this film and all others of theirs that I have seen. Helena as Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter....Oh. My. Gah! So fantastic.

For anyone who hasn't seen it that reads this blog, I recommend that you see it immediately. It is a bit bloody, (ok, it's really bloody) but the most fantastic movie that I have seen in a long time.




Hehe, this isn't from Sweeney Todd, but rather a great scene of Helena Bonham-Carter from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Really, I can't say it enough: I love her.

I'm back

OK, so I haven't posted in a really long time. A really long time. All of my previous posts have been for a class that I was taking in the summer but from now on I think I will post just random ramblings about life in general. I hope to post more frequently but with the craziness of student teaching I guess I'll have to see how it goes.

grabe

The “Big Six” is a set of six skills for solving information problems. The individual skills of the “Big Six” enable students to identify the nature of the problem, locate, process, organize, apply information resources to the solution, and evaluate the success of the solution. The “Big Six” not only helps students solve information problems in school settings but also in real life settings.
Teachers can use the "Big Six" as a way to direct assignments and research projects. I think that teachers often use these strategies without even knowing it; I know that for myself I recognized the process without even realizing that I had ever learned it. I think it would be great for teachers to make the process explicit, however, because if students can be conscious of it they can be conscious of when to use it and when it works.

cpb

There are many ways that teachers can use videos in their classroom. I think that first and foremost television is a way to keep students engaged in a class. The CPB article states that “since viewers have limited control of the flow of information, comprehension is importantly linked to their ability to stay engaged with the medium;” using television is a simple way to achieve this. I think that one major issue for students is that they are so visually stimulated outside of school with television, the internet, video games, etc… that when they go to school and sit in a class staring at a teacher they just have a hard time paying attention, a hard time staying interested. In a society whose children watch more and more television every day, what better way to keep them engaged than using a medium that we already know they respond to?
Not only can teachers use television to help engage students, but they can also use it to stimulate class discussion, reinforce reading and lectures, provide a common base of knowledge for all students, and help teach them more effectively. It can spark interest or inspiration, demonstrate something that could not be demonstrated any other way, enrich curriculum content, help practice a skill, and reinforce or review a topic. Television is a fairly simple way to accomplish a lot of things in a classroom, I just think that it is unfortunate that TV in schools has such a bad reputation.

harris

Though internet projects are being used in schools now I don't think they are being used to the extent that they could be. I had never really thought about it before this class; technology in class was simply a video presentation or a powerpoint. It may sound naive, but technology was just a way of presenting information and not much else, except maybe perhaps a research tool. I never quite realized the potential of the internet projects. Things like telemonitoring and electronic appearances as Harris mentions offer so many great resources and opportunities to bring the students right to the source, or I guess to bring the source right to the students. Telefieldtrips, simulations, and social action projects could be incredibly useful in bringing learning to life for students. I think that the same lack of knowledge that I had could be one of the reasons that internet projects are not being used often in schools: many teachers simply don't know that they exist. I also think that the lack of resources and time for teachers may be another block in the use of internet projects. And, of course, the damn No Child Left Behind Act that pressures teachers into getting thier students to pass the tests, regardless of whether or not that means that they actually learned anything. I think that if we could educate all teachers on ways to use these projects and how they can even assist in helping students pass the damn NCLB tests, the internet may have a better chance of being used to it's full potential in classes.

grossman

Gabcast! TL 5141 #1