Technology & Topics for Teachers provided me with an introduction to new teaching tools and perhaps more importantly the necessary information to find such tools on my own. The classroom environment was fantastic and allowed for discussion about the benefits of any new technology we encountered and gave us time to use it with the guidance of the instructor. Overall this course was extremely good. The worst part of this class for me was, in true 21st century form, user generated. I simply did have the time to devote to this class to get the most benefit out of it. This is probably evident from a quick look at the timestamps on these last several posts on my own blog. I regret that I found myself scrambling to catch up rather than keeping a steady pace throughout. I gained a lot from this course, but see that I also left a lot of potential fruit unharvested.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Latin PLN
The search for a PLN in the Classics was not an easy one. I have found both in my experience with the majority of my colleagues as well as in this search that many classicists have not embraced technology whole-heartedly. The American Classical League maintains a website with resources for teachers, but very little interaction between them. LatinTeach.com has such a message board in theory, but it has not been touched in several years. The closest thing to a PLN related to teaching that I have found is a blog associated with LatinTeach.com. This blog does not have a message board per se, has several articles and other contributions that allow for some back and forth through the comments. Even if limited, this is a great resource for bouncing ideas off others in the field and has made its way onto my bookmark bar.
Portfolio Assessment
Assessment has become perhaps the single most prevalent term in education in recent years. Before this course, I had never used portfolio assessment—neither as a student nor a teacher. I see great value in such a method however. I hope to implement portfolio assessment, if not in introductory Latin courses (where I think assessment based on quizzed and tests is very much appropriate) at least in my intermediate language courses where a body of work produced throughout the course can be sufficient to assess whether the student is accomplishing the course objectives and developing in his or her understanding of the language.
21st Century Teaching
Before taking Technology and Topics for educators, I am not sure I would have known to use the term "21st century teacher" and I probably wouldn't have thought it applies to my own teaching upon first hearing it. I teach a language that is 2200 years old in very much the same way that the 70 year old Carmelite priest who taught me during the 20th century. After some reflection, however, I have come to the realization that I am in many ways a 21st century teacher. While I present new material in a more traditional method, they way in which I have my students work with that material after its initial presentation is very much in line with 21st century teaching. My students often collaborate on review material, both in groups in the classroom and electronically through shared documents. I consider critical thinking as a necessary component of learning Latin, both to understand not just the nature of Latin's morphology and syntax but also to consider the ideas presented by the great minds of Western Civilization. In fostering these critical thinking skills in a collaborative environment, I believe I am in many ways a 21st Century Teacher.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Seeing myself on Film
It was quite an experience to view myself on film. I knew I would cringe—as most people do—at the sound of my own voice. I did not necessarily expect to be to be distracted by my other mannerisms. I noticed myself look back at the screen several times, in effect talking away from my audience. Perhaps this is me being over critical of myself, but I can't help but think that would be noticeable to my students and as a result have resolved to eliminate that habit.