The End of TPTE 486

The class is coming to a close but I'm certainly happy that I had it. Throughout the class there were numerous instances where I learned something that could easily be used in my future classroom. From wiki's to websites, TPTE has given me a somewhat new perspective of how to incorporate technology into my classroom and how students can interact with me through the internet. I also learned that Google is a phenomenal resource in many more ways than just searching for who the lead singer of The Eagles was. I can use Google to share work with other teachers and students alike in a manner that I did not even know existed. This class will certainly come in hand in the future and I appreciate UT for making it a requirement. There were assignments that didn't go as well as I would have like, but overall the class was enjoyable and productive. Thanks Ginny!

Website for Fulton High School

I'm currently working on my website for TPTE 486. The website will be useful(hopefully) for giving my future students information about myself and in helping them keep up with given assignments. I get to include the projects I've done in this class and create a new blog for my students at Fulton High School. It'll be interesting to see how students respond to the website since I don't ever remember any of my high school teachers having a website. I'm hoping that they will visit the website often enough that it will inspire me to continue to add to it. In reflection of the assignment that this is, I am happy that it is something required of me in the program. Creation of a website is something I've always wanted to try and I can tie it with my profession in such a manner as to help myself and others stay organized. There is plenty that I need to learn to maximize the usefulness of Google Sites, but(like anything else) I'll learn with time.

Digital Portfolios

The work portfolio is something I would generally lump with artists and cartoonists when thinking about it. Interestingly I have had to change this perspective as I have moved through the education department at UT. Our portfolios include different items that we've completed through our program. I like the use of digital portfolios specifically. There are som many useful means of distributing a digital portfolio with little or no harm environmentally or monetarily. I have made numerous assignments that will end up in my portfolio(now on taskstream). The sweet part about this is that I can email, or just give someone access to, my portfolio that lives anywhere in the world. They can see what I'm able to do in terms of education with very little real effort on my part. The digital portfolio is definitely something I would like to see enter secondary educatioon. Students could choose their best papers and individual assignments and give universities an easier way of properly judging their effort in high school. It will likely happen at some point, but given that it's a good idea it probably wouldn't be instituted for quite some time.

Interactive Spreadsheet and its Uses

The interactive spreadsheet, while not actually going according to plan, was a good assignment for me since I am not very good with Excel.(as can be seen) I like that students can do an assignment and instantly receive feedback on their answers, even if that feedback is just whether they are right or wrong. In this age of instant gratification it seems almost inadequate to give students an assignment that they have to wait a day or two to see the results of. With an interactive spreadsheet I can constantly be teaching the students such things as subject-verb agreement without actually having to look over their shoulders and see if their answers are correct. I would certainly be able to find many other uses for such a format of education.

Ray Bradbury iMovie



I was unsure as to what I was going to do with this assignment initially. I thought of doing my own biography, but I felt I wouldn't learn much from that type of exercise. I came up with the idea of doing a biography of an author that I had not only read, but one that I am going to enjoy teaching during my time at Fulton this year. Ray Bradbury wrote Fahrenheit 451, which I will be teaching this year. This gave me an opportunity to study what made him such a great author and what made him an interesting man as well. Bradbury was able to look at the world in a given period and come up with fantastical images of what that world could transform into with the right(or wrong depending on perspective) choices being made by those in power. An interesting moment in this was reading one particular interview that he once gave. In this interview he describes once being dumbfounded by seeing a woman with what we would now call headphones in her ears and it being attached to a small radio with a long wire sticking out. He said she was oblivious to the world around her and he was afraid of the consequences of progression in such technology. The interview was held in...pause for dramatic effect...1973! That was just very interesting to me. Look how far we've come since then. All I can do is wonder if it is a step in the right direction. That type of wonderment is what Ray Bradbury was trying to inspire.

Inspiring with Inspiration

For my Inspiration project I made a diagram displaying common themes in some of Shakespeare's plays. I enjoyed making this project because I can definitely use what I have made. The program itself is very easy to use and accessible. Making the diagram was not difficult andthe availability of images I could use was fairly astonishing. I want to use this program agin at some point because it is definitely a valuable teaching tool. Inspiration can be used to create many other diagrams for displaying information in a manner that is understandable for students and in such a way as to not confusing or boring. I certainly like that it can help connect ideas and "buzz" words for students in a visually appealing manner.

Midway Through TPTE 486

Well, I've made it to the midway point of TPTE 486 with no glaring problems so far. I feel fairly good about the course so far. I came into the class with a good bit of previous knowledge about what we have covered so far. I have enjoyed learning about the Web 2.0 tools, many of which I was unaware of. I am excited to learn of similar items that I have never seen as far as programs and tools are concerned. I do not have any worries or anticipation about how the rest of the class will go based on what we have done so far.

The scavenger hunt was an interesting assignment. I, unlike my fellow students, was alone in the English Educator's version of the scavenger hunt. I was able to find each of the items necessary for the scavenger hunt since many were different types of words or commonly used items. In college this type of assignment does seem a little out of place to me but it could certainly be a useful assignment in a high school setting. Many of the items were interesting enough and an individual could definitely be creative with the photos they take. It's definitely possible that I will use this assignment format at a later date.

Scavenger Hunt

WebQuests

I was generally aware of what WebQuests were prior to the beginning of class on Monday the 20th but I was not aware of how often they were now being used. In my high school career, I do not remember using them as much as they are likely used today. I am intrigued about the idea of supplementing any readings I amy have with a WebQuest that makes the students delve deeper into themes and ideas that they may not see otherwise. I am a fan of any means of accomplishing this task, but students will likely be more accepting of using the internet and a WebQuest than a worksheet. It will definitely keep their interest longer and that alone(not to mention saving paper) makes the use of WebQuests something that will likely find its way into my classroom. QuestGarden makes this a much more accessible tool to create than I would have assumed which gives me all the more reason to go ahead and contemplate where all WebQuests can be used.

Web 2.0 and StoryBird

    When I found out my Web 2.0 tool was StoryBird, my first reaction was "What is StoryBird?" I was pretty familiar with each of the other available Wb 2.0 tools and found it unusual for me to of never heard of the site at all. To my surprise, StoryBird turned out to be a very cool website. The site gives users the ability to create their own stories and incorporate their own, as well as others', unique drawings into a type of "virtual storybook." I found myself going from one story to the next just to enjoy the incredible creativity involved in just about every other example. I foresee no difficulties in explaining how StoryBird works because it is a fairly simple design as far as creation though the final result is almost always fairly incredible.

    Unfortunately, the site is intended for elementary and middle grade students and may not be well suited for high school students. This shouldn't completely deter me from using the website in some form. For example, the website would be useful for students to create a "story" that explains how to do a specific task. This may work but overall, I'm still very excited about using StoryBird as my Web 2.0 tool.

Wiki First Impressions

Having used wiki's before, I was already aware of their usefulness in working with a group on class projects and presentations. I, however, was not aware of all of the uses that wiki's provide for a teacher. The numerous uses such as class collaboration on exam study guides and review of materials including chapter by chapter discussions that students can have about a novel intrigued me greatly. I definitely want to use wiki's in my future classes because I can easily see their usefulness in getting students to discuss their thoughts. One of the greatest difficulties for an English teacher is the fact that there always just a few students that speak up during discussion and the majority of the class is uninvolved. By requiring students to post their thoughts on individual chapters on a wiki, I can very easily see how far each student is in the novel and guide my future discussions by what the students seem to find the most interesting. Also, I could see using a wiki with colleagues in my department to keep all of us on even ground for progression through classes. The wiki is such an accessible tool and requires so little prior computer oriented knowledge. Needless to say, I am a fan of wiki's.

Reflection on Website Evaluation

I completed the assignment requiring me to evaluate the validity of a website for it's reliablility of content as well as the reliablility of the publisher. As I have been familiar with websites for quite some time and have been using them as part of numerous papers and assignments in my Undergraduate studies as an English Major, I am fairly well acquainted with the process of verifying a site's validity. This assignment was quite thorough and brought to light some issues in that process that I had yet to think of. The verification of all of the links as well as how open the author of the site is with their own personal contact information both were areas that I had not used in validation before. The website I used in the assignment was webenglishteacher.com. This is a website that has been recommended to me by numerous colleagues as a tool for teaching English. In the process of following the guidelines set in the assignment, I have only further solidified my belief in that this is a trustworthy website and that it will work well for me in the future as a teaching tool. Many philosophies, study guides, worksheets, and pieces of general information about curriculum are available here. This is a useful assignment for anyone that is not familiar with the many specific details that go into validating a website for its validity of information, scholarly or otherwise.

Learning Expectations in 486

I don't have many expectations for TPTE 486 other than that I'll become acquainted with a few tools in technology that I haven't used before. I expect to leave this course with a better knowledge of how to smoothly integrate technology within my classroom. I have always been fairly tech savvy, so there should be little that I will not be able to fairly quickly understand. I don't often come into my classes with many expectations as a rule for myself because I find that they are more often than not either wrong or just misguided. I hope to learn plenty as this course progresses.

About Me

Hello All and Welcome,
        My name is Blake Trent. I am 22 years old, from Kingsport, TN and a Capricorn. This is my blog for my Theory and Practice in Teacher Education 486 course. I have never done a regular blog, so I expect this to be an interesting learning experience. I am taking this course in the hopes of becoming slightly more well acquainted with several technologies that may make teaching my prospective students easier. I plan to begin teaching 9th and 10th grade English at Fulton High School in Knoxville, Tennessee as part of my internship at the University of Tennessee. I am currently in the midst of a very fast paced and exciting time in my life and I am both nervous and excited about how everything is going.
      I enjoy plenty of hobbies, mostly sports oriented hobbies. I am a big fan of basketball, football, and snowboarding. I love to read and learn new things about the world. I spend much of my time contemplating on different things, which is both good and bad depending on the particular contemplation. I play video games fairly often, yet not anything like I used to as a child. I feel pretty useless if I sit around for too long and I am more often than not looking to better myself in some way or another. This class is a byproduct of that very endeavor. Hopefully more about myself will be conveyed as this blog continues.