During
these first three sessions, the main focus of my participation in the RTEACHER
listserve has been to just try and get connected. In the middle of week 2 I had a travel commitment that interrupted
my ability to connect and follow through on problems I was having with the
process. However, once I was able to
get online again and the fog of jetlag had cleared, I discovered that
everything was in order. I read through
“Questions to the Instructor” at our Telecampus site to get a tip on how to
respond to the digest. Consequently, I
responded to three different topics with four emails via the digest. One
message, apparently did succeed in reaching its intended destination, and I was
able to respond it . In response to my
other emails, I received delivery failure notices. So I had to spend more time
trying to figure out how to get around another glitch in the process. My final solution was to get online to view
the archives and respond directly from the RTEACHER site. I chose to respond to two topics. My messages were posted successfully and I’m
waiting to see if I get any responses.
re:
technology
I
signed up for the Digest form since I did not want to overload my email system. Getting the initial digest was not
difficult, however, figuring out how to use it proved to be another story. I have used Listserves before, so it was
even more frustrating to me when things weren’t working or when the process of
how to proceed was not transparent.
This assignment seemed to take a disproportionate amount of time just to
get the needed content. And in the end,
I have had very little interaction with other posters. However, I DID learn how to make it work for
me.
From
this, I conclude that my learning has largely been in the domain of the “hidden
curriculum” i.e. technology use and application issues. Specifically, I’ve learned one way to
successfully use the RTEACHER Listserve.
I’ve also learned the limitations of my dial-up connection in the third
world country where I am living.
Finally, I’ve learned a lot about what to pay attention to in regard to
instruction needed for new users. I do
like to use technology application with my own students, but I am realizing
that there are a number of “literacy” issues related to technology
including: providing step-by-step
instructions that I have tried and have found to work, providing screen shots
when possible to aid communication, checking URLs to be sure that they are
working, as well as helpful discourse markers that can be used in discussion
groups to aid communication, and instructions on deleting extra text so that
messages are less confusing. In
addition, I think, maybe it is important to remind students that technology is
a dynamic entity so it doesn’t always work the same way for each person every
time. Flexible thinking and patience
are required.
re:
literacy issues
I
was interested to discover a teacher using Rosetta Stone, a language learning
software program that I’m familiar with.
I hope this teacher will talk some more about how it is working for
her. I noticed that many other teachers
are asking the same questions that I ask of myself in regard to teaching. This encouraged me, and I look forward to
learning from others as they solve their problems. I also got some ideas on excellent resources by reading through
postings about Readers Theatre and Fluency Development, even though I did not
directly respond to those postings.
I’ve been made aware of the potential for using learning centers to
promote student inquiry and discovery in the middle school classroom, and I
hope to glean some cool ideas to try.
I’m very curious to find out more about the national reading panel’s
conclusions regarding Accelerated Reader as their conclusions are apparently
contrary to those of Topping in the Reading Online article I read for this
weeks journal review.