Archive for March 2009
Power Point
If you want to know my honest opinion about Power Point, I do think it is crippling our students. I believe one of the original purposes of Power Point was to help people present projects, speeches, among others. What happens in reality though is that “power point itself has been presenting projects to people” when it should be the other way around. People should use power point only as a tool to enrich or guide their presentations. But what many people do is that, they just throw a whole presentation, full texts in this instrument and let it do the job alone. I grew up giving presentations by myself without the support of electronic gadgets. I think at the same time technology helps, it cripples our students. If they had to do the job on their own, without the aid of computers, I bet they would develop much better oral skills, they would know better how to present themselves in public and so on. We as teachers have the obligation to make rules clear, specify what is acceptable in a power point presentation. Students must be told by us, teachers, what is expected from them, as well as what they should avoid in presentations. If they keep doing a bad job when it comes to these presentations, maybe we should not blame it directly on the students. Think it over.
1 comment March 26, 2009
Being part of a clique
Have you ever belonged to any “school tribe”? I have! Let me tell you a little bit about my own experience. When I first lived in Rochester in 1992, I was only fifteen. I was an exchange student looking forward to improving my oral English skills. I had a tough time trying to adjust myself and finding out where I fit in. The school I went to was very poor, and even though I was a minority member myself, still I struggled to find my spot under the sun. Black people rejected me for not being black, Latinos said I dressed differently and they made fun of the fact that I considered myself Hispanic when I did not know how to say a word in Spanish (my primary language is Portuguese). I ended up hanging out with the very few white people that belonged to that school. They were all rockers, head bangers, Gothics or whichever other term you want to name them. We got along well, we had “rock” in common. That was only a phase though, a fashionable wave. Soon after, I went back to being “normal”. Belonging to a clique, had a high price. At the same type you make friends, you gain enemies. And unfortunately people judge you improperly by your looks and not by whom you really are. What I would like teachers and parents to consider is not to judge a book by its cover. Give our teens a chance, give them more credit. Some of them are really good kids. Some are just temporarily hiding behind weird-looking shells.
2 comments March 23, 2009
Things a bit more fair
There was nothing I hated more in school other than group projects. It was so unfair. People that worked the hardest, ended up getting the same grades of those who contributed almost nothing to the project. There was nothing you could do in order to solve this problem either. If you ever told the teacher the real deal that was going on, you ran the risk of losing your friends friendship or being called a snitch forever. So all there was left for you to do was to work hard and basically give your lazy friends free merit for the work. It happened to me several times. My mom says I was born an old, responsible person. Unfortunately, that is how I am. Indeed I am a serious, honest, hardworking person and a bit perfectionist too. I want things done for yesterday, if you know what I mean. So I never waited or counted on my friends to accomplish any work, if something was to be done, I did it myself! Thank God those days are over and people like me won’t suffer with this type of thing anymore. With tools like Wiki, group projects can be done easily and in a very just, efficient way. Teachers are able to follow through the whole process and grade each student properly, according to their input or effort dedicated to the project. Don’t take me wrong, I am not a competitive person, all I care about is justice. Wiki is great for me now as a student and I am truly looking forward to working with it as a teacher.
5 comments March 12, 2009
What a waste of time
I can’t believe I would completely dislike Blogs a couple of years ago. I would look down at people who participated in Blogs and think they had nothing else to do furthermore they should all “get a life”. Isn’t it funny how much I’ve changed my opinion though? I really like Blogs today and I intend to have my own soon. Now I understand people’s motives for Blogging. Whether you write your own Blog or comment on other people’s Blogs, it is interesting and fun anyways! I understand that the reasons why people Blog can go beyond diversion. Some do it for fun, to share their lives with friends, family, in “journal-like” style compositions. Others take it more seriously and develop more of a “newspaper-like” formal, professional writing. Thing is, it doesn’t matter what your intention is, Blogging can certainly help you in several ways. I pursue a teaching career, so I believe Blogging could be a very useful and efficient tool in my profession. I could post materials and resources and share them with my students. I could also host discussions, share my lesson plans, exchange ideas with other peers, get feedback from students and teachers as well, get my students more interested in writing and etc. Why didn’t I think of it before??
1 comment March 6, 2009
