Apparel

Up until now, my style of clothing has been jeans and t-shirts.  I wasn't really the type to run around in dresses and skirts, and I certainly didn't wear many fancy shirts.  My first year student teaching brought forth with it a change in my apparel.  While I don't fancy dresses and skirts all too much, wearing them with more "professional" clothes has been a bit fun.  The whole thing brings forth the question: "How am I supposed to dress, now?"  I feel like after graduating from UCI with my MA and once I get a job, it'll be somewhat of a requirement for me to dress nicer.  I mean, jeans are still appropriate, and so are T-shirts, to an extent, but I'm talking about cardigans and nice tops and shoes, etc.  Oh yes, For the last x years of my life, I've been wearing only sandals.  I got into the style of boots not too long ago, so I wear those when wearing sandals on a cold day would be painful, but I even wore socks with my sandals.  So, now I feel required to wire nice flip flops (if I wear them at all), heels, etc.  Don't get me wrong; those are fun to wear.  However, they make walking/running a bid tedious at times.  

Therefore, I've been slowly expanding my wardrobe, trying dresses and skirts here and there, along with nice dress shirts.  Lucky for me, I can wear my sister's clothes and she has quite a good taste.  So I find myself "shopping" in her side of the closet.  Too bad her feet are larger than mine, else I'd be wearing those, too.  Anyway, the reason I decided to talk about apparel is because once I get a job (so I pray), I'll have to dress professionally all year round.  I've never been good at selecting clothes for myself or knowing how to make this shirt work with those shorts, etc., and for my first year of student teaching, I relied on advice from my friends when buying clothes.  My students actually voted that I stop wearing suits and wear more casual clothes.  My MT agreed with them, so I ended up giving up suits towards the end of the year.  Anyway, I'm wondering what kinds of clothing reach that borderline of being "professional" yet moderately "casual" as well.  Food for thought!

Google Docs and PowerPoint

I've never been one for group projects when it comes to writing.  I always felt it would benefit me better to work alone, and I would get the work done more easily.  However, this quarter, alone, I've had to work in groups a majority of the time.  I thought the idea of writing a paper between five people was crazy.  I didn't know how it would be possible.  However, what's great is that Google Docs allows us to do just that.  While I do get disconnected every five minutes while using it, it's neat to see my group members working together, editing, rewriting, adding and subtracting to the material online.

Google Powerpoint has been useful, too.  Granted, I prefer to use programs such as Flash instead of Powerpoint for presenting purposes, but being able to collaborate with group members to construct a powerpoint is very helpful.  I can see how my peers and I can utilize it if we are teaching the same subject in the future.  For example, if I am teaching a lesson on metaphors and a friend of mine will be, too, the two of us can utilize Google Powerpoint to construct a presentation we can use in both our classes.  I think that would be pretty amazing to do.  It’s also nice for people who do not have Powerpoint on their laptops; they can use Google PowerPoint and can save themselves some hundreds of dollars (darn you Microsoft for charging so much).

P.S. Sorry this is late.

U.S. Constitution and Other Thoughts

So I took a stab at the U.S. Constitution test this last Friday in the hopes that I could pass it and start the process in order to obtain my credential.  WELL.  So much for that.  I'll have to retake that thing at the end of July.  I remember a lot of us sitting around and wondering why we had to take this test; why it was mandatory for us to pass this test.  I suppose the reason they want us to (and this is just my opinion) is so that we will be aware of the rights we and our students have.  Not only that, but since we are going to be professional teachers, role models, counselors, etc., I suppose we should be good citizens and know our Constitution and U.S. history and whatnot.  Again, that's just what I'm pulling from this.

A friend and I were sitting around thinking about how a year has gone by since we began our teaching (and observations).  We met our kids, helped out in the classroom, took over, and then taught them.  One could say we helped raise them (I mean, hey, they spend most of the day in school, five days a week, every day; we're like parents, too).  It was an amazing feeling: remembering what we had accomplished.  We sat around in silence for a few minutes, reflecting on our classes and the memories we had of our students.  I had jokingly said to my younger sister that one of the best things about being a teacher is you get a group of kids, you teach them for a year, help them grow, and then you let them go and grow up; it's like being a parent without really being a parent.  Anyway, that's me rambling on.  I really love watching my students excel and improve throughout the year.  It's amazing that what I teach them helps them learn and grow.  Or so I hope.  Even through all the hair-pulling moments when essays weren't exactly what I had hoped they'd be, I thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait to do it again for the rest of my life.

Greets!

Hi ho, Spring (or Summer) Cleaning!

Over the past several months during my student teaching, my room has become a conglomeration of papers upon papers upon papers.  Not only was I not able to see my floor (it might be a black hole!), but it was difficult to maneuver through my room just to get to my desk!  I know, I know, terrible, right?  I was afraid to throw anything away during my student teaching for fear of needing something later or forgetting that I hadn't passed back something, etc.  Now that I have officially finished student teaching (submitted all my grades, said goodbye to my students and my MT), I decided to tackle the mountain of papers on my floor.  

It's amazing how much stuff we, as English teachers, collect.  Perhaps this relates to teachers in other subject areas as well.  I had extra handouts, student sample work, student artifacts, scantron tests, worksheets, packets, etc. all sitting around my floor just begging to be recycled.  It was difficult throwing things away, even when the year was over!  I still had that feeling of "perhaps I'll need this..." even though I'm completely done.  That's not to say I threw everything away.  I kept one original copy of everything I ever gave to my students and filed them in folders with appropriate titles (i.e. worksheets for Lord of the Flies went into a folder with Lord of the Flies written on the top, worksheets for miscellaneous activities like learning comma rules went into another folder).  Granted, I have nowhere to put those folders at the moment (my bookcases are exploding with books, my filing cabinet is full of art, stories, classwork from UCI, etc.) but at least they're all nice and organized.

A fellow student teacher at my school site and I discussed the importance of being organized and tidy.  Towards the end of the school year, it became exceedingly apparent to me just how organized one needs to be.  I had two piles on my floor that consisted of things I needed to grade for both of my classes.  In those piles, I had paperclips attached to specific assignments so I could differentiate one assignment from another.  Other piles around my room consisted of UCI schoolwork, old worksheets, new worksheets, etc.  I feel I wasn't as organized as I wanted to be (though I never lost a students' work the whole year!), but I feel that part of the reason I wasn't as organized is because I didn't have my own classroom (let alone my own space in the classroom).  I hope to be better organized when I get my own room.  After all, I'll have filing cabinets, a desk, (hopefully), etc. in the room that I can use for the multitudinous papers I'll be making and handing out.

Maybe I should start using colored paper....

As an end note, paperclips are the new love of my life.

My Educational Experiences with Technology

I was interested in technology since I was introduced to the computer as a little girl in third grade.  Little did I know how interested I would become, though, as I grew older.  The majority of my memories concerning technology circulate around high school.  During my time at school, when everyone was getting into new and snazzy phones, I was taking a Web Design class and fascinating over the new computers.  In the class, I created my own website on a topic of my choice (Geisha in Japan), and learned HTML and CSS.  I was already pretty computer savvy, so I knew my way around the computer pretty well.  Right now, I'm still learning and my friend is teaching me Flash and the programming language used for animations so I can create flashes to use in my classes (rather than power points).  I used Photoshop in high school (and still use it now) for art, and I am an avid gamer.  So having a top-notch laptop is important for me to get my gaming on.  I never quite learned Excel, though, to my disadvantage, but I'm sure with time and effort, I could easily pick it up.

At my school site, I was dissuaded from using technology in my class.  The computer in my class was super old (256 mb of RAM!) and hardly functioned well, if at all.  The computer labs in the library were nice, but every one was using Vista, which - in my opinion - is slow and not as great as XP or 7.  It look about 10 minutes to get students to just sign into their accounts, which took away time from them doing research or the assignment I wanted them to do.  I did not have an ELMO in my classroom, and thus I couldn't utilize that form of technology, as well.  I did experience some students who did not have a computer at home, or who did not have Internet at home (and thus could not upload their essays onto Turnitin.com), and so certain accommodations had to be made for those students.

And that's my story!