Sunday, July 3, 2016

Week 4 Reading Response



I've got this, I've got this, I don't got this.

This has been a hard week for me, and I think it started last week with the whole iMovie busted bubble. I do want to use more tools from the computer and Internet. I don't want to be that blacksmith who never learns another trade and is put out of business because he doesn't challenge his knowledge about how the world works.

I am a self-educated woman.

And this class is hard for me because I've skirted around computers and learning how to use them my whole life.

Embarrassing.

I'm the fourth kid in a large family and I never got a turn on the Nintendo.

I got a Samsung Galaxy 5 two/three years ago and that was the first time I had a "smart phone".

And look, what I've taught myself is pretty impressive. Marjorie came to me today to connect her FitBit to her phone (Sync!). But we have a problem all the time with people who are dismissive to us because they've had this technology longer. Oh, it's so easy to work. Oh, it's so amazing.

*Rah, rah rah*


But, next time you step out of the bubble of people you have created around you, into a public space. Think about the 4th person from you - they don't have Internet. Period. And we aren't talking about people who have given up internet just to use their cell phone. We are talking about no connection to it at all.

Maybe they go to the library. I mean, could you go anywhere else for free Internet? What if you didn't have a computer you could connect to the Internet with? (Save the libraries!)

Twice in this class I've felt misunderstood. And like last night I was up thinking about it. And I have to say first that I have really struggled with the Twitter network. I just don't understand how I can look at the full conversation with someone so I understand what I'm responding to. Hyphasis is a bit better for me, and I like that you just plug in any web address and you can make comments.

I feel that's a pretty cool program. And balance that with how I can't navigate Twitter. I'm sure if I had someone give me lessons I'd be a wiz at it. But I'm already learning and processing so much as it is, that again I'm throwing that back into the unimportant pile. I just don't care.

But wait. learning it means participating in this course, and because this is a class it's actually urgent.

But who do I delegate that to? Wait?

Does that mean it is Important, but I don't feel it's urgent. (Being a wife and a teacher are the Urgent and Important things, and graduating with a Mater's is a slim part of being a teacher. But Twitter is not as interesting to me as SoundCloud or alternatives to iMovie).

Meaning I will give a set time everyday for this, but it will take time. Discipline.

And that's how I'm trying to teach.

How do you write a lesson plan for that? Which standards did you cover?

I am so busy trying to pour out of my head onto the page what I want this class to look like, sound like, be like. Speak up. Declare my intentions.

That's the real reason to learn writing. To better process your own thoughts and feelings. And share them.

And it takes me longer to express my ideas here in computerland because I have to interrupt flow to go google how to take  screenshot of the Twitter convo so I can share it here as an example - but my phone keeps shutting off when I try to press and hold the down volume and power button at the same time... (*after 20 minutes I gave up trying)

Plus it's been an hour and a half and the "video" is still loading. (*And it never loaded, but then like magic I tried something different and we have that cute dog at the top of the post *remember that's how I'm feeling this week, if you need to go smile and lighten the mood a little)

What I really want to be doing is organizing for my Return to Teaching (dramatic theme music).

Second year, so many mistakes, so many new ideas. And I am passionate about what I do because I'm passionate about understanding the distance between the have and the have nots...

*Here is a spot where I went off trying to find this picture and when I came back my train of thought was much derailed* I'm leaving in all these editing notes because despite what I say I can't help but go back over and reread and tinker with the writing. I want to share meaning. And I need more than 140 characters.*

It took twenty minutes to upload the (17) photos (which is actually pretty good time). I think this is what happened the first time I had a misunderstanding on Hypothis, I tend to bounce around a lot in my thoughts. And it's hard in cyberspace to see the space a conversation takes place in. It's hard to keep track of your conversations and misunderstandings happen.

But that's why I named my blog Unfiltered Learning. I don't have time to edit this. I don't have the time because this class is asking me to do what we are trying to teach students to do, figure it out for themselves. And I see the beauty in this because I see through this lens, is how I learned.

Unable to go to school. 12 years old and illiterate.

A goal that changed my life.

Read one book, every four days, and it has to be at least 100 pages.

It was huge, because when I finally did get to walk into my first class room at Otero Junior College I had already develop some of those skills we as educators/behavior scientiest/developmental experts/ humanitarians are saying we need to help students with.

Perseverence

Grit

Resilience

Are these all the same thing? What makes them different? Do using them together create a stronger meaning?

And how is the experience I am having right now challenge all of those strengths I have?

Oh let me count the ways.

But no more fancy pictures.

This class is so jarring in how it doesn't fit in with the UTCE 5010 class or the Urban Community Teachers program that I started my Master's in. And I don't know if it was suppose to fit in. The list of options presented to my cohort didn't present this class in the same way I am precieving it now. And I think again that Twitter is not a good medium for me to communicate in. My comments yeserday seemed to cause a few misunderstandings and then I struggled to navigate the conversation.

But alas my screenshot didn't work. (Remember I was working on that earlier).

So let me now share with you an observation. This was our Daily Create for class yesterday. And it was pretty straight forward and people really expressed their different creative elements. Mine's rather plan because I've been working on this other Design thing for class that is taking up a lot of time, as all computer work does with me right?

But then I notice something, What3Words talks about it's product.
Here is an ad for What3Words - notice the clever placement of
Fiction, Unless, Pave
?
Mind you, our assignment has nothing to do with What3Words, our assignment is to find "our"three words, Google search those words and use those images to make our JPEG. And it's a good assignment that runs you through the process and you get some hands on experience PhotoShopping and it lets you be creative.


So really the fact that I get so upset by this...

In everyone’s language
We have rolled out our 3 word address system in 9 languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swahili, Russian, German, Turkish & Swedish. We are adding to those every month and are currently working on Italian, Greek, Arabic and more.
The 3 word address in one language is not a translation of the 3 words used in a different language version and you can use the language you are most comfortable with.
You can choose the 3 word language that we display 3 word addresses to you in, but you never have to tell us what language you are inputting the 3 word addresses in: we will recognise the language automatically.
Doesn't mean anything to our class, and really I just wanted to know if anyone dig into the cite we were all using for the project.

Because I've been having trouble with our course required readings this week too. You see, when I got back from San Francisco this week I was all jumbled up. There's this blog post I've been working on since Orlando about being gay that I just don't feel is ready to share. But it's important to me and on the 25th I found out a friend's nephew killed himself. He was a teen, gay from Bountiful, UT.

And then I got tripped up some more and again because of this required reading:

PROS
"The similarities with more conventional journal writing are reasonably clear, but yet, to write a blog is a little like displaying a personal journal in a shop window, for friends and passers-by to read at their leisure." Davies and Merchant (2007) 
and
"The presentation of self in a particular way, as showcased through our own blogs, has been a focus of our recent academic work." Davies and Merchant (2007) 
And again I was working on this blog. Now see I know myself pretty well by now, remember why I named the blog Unfiltered Learning. Because I was suppose to take the filter off.  I am suppose to just go with the gut and say to hell with it...

But now I had two posts I was juggling when I lost my motivation to keep going.

Willpower is a finite resource. This
amazing book has really helped me
better prioritize what is important. 
*Now remember children are not this reflective. Reflection must be practiced, it is a skill to learn. One I've practiced a lot with my journals. But I imagine that the way I'm feeling is the same as a sixteen year olds. Other stuff is happening. I struggle with this already.*

Willpower helped me understand that when I used all my energy on things I didn't want to be doing (no matter how "important" they are) I have less energy for the things that really matter to me. This cycle starts to get out of control when to reward yourself for all the things you "have to do" (relaxing with a beer, watching television, playing Call of Duty, etc) leaves you no time for the things you "want to do".

Alot of the books I've been reading and studying try to explain how you can balance the time and prioritize better (my chart above has really helped me). Remember how I said learning how to better use Twitter better became Important (because of school) but not Urgent (to me the student) so I needed to schedule blocks of time for it. You also find out that the 45 minutes of DEXTER aren't as important as actually get your steps in (although I found a way to do both, thank you treadmill).

CONS
"Looking from the Inside Out: Academic Blogging as New Literacy" by Julia Davies and Guy Merchant was published in 2007. Which means when they refer to Riverbend's blog in the present tense it has really been 9 years. Did anyone look up her blog?

I did.

And that's when I got tripped up for the third time and by that time I was doing the What3Words assignment. And I did ask if anyone was looking behind the curtains.

Riverbend and The Survival of Riverbend

When young adults start to see differences in the world and the way they've been told about it, it can cause some resistence. And that's where I'm at. I don't care about using the Internet better if it just produces apathy. Busy work. Cool stuff but no real master, no real craftmanship. I Twitted several articles that kind of spoke to my frustrations.



I don't have anything figured out. I have more and more questions. But that's what I need to get back to the classroom. I need to get back to work with my students.

And I need to learn to just say it and move on.

(*now to read everything through one more time)
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