Final Reactions to Fires

Fires In The Bathroom was a good book to read, and it will be a good book to keep and read every once in a while as I gain teaching experience. The book wouldn't necessarily be a good way for me to prepare myself for teaching, but as a reaction to things that I see in the classroom, it provides good hints and tips. I think the majority of growth for a teacher happens in the field. Work in college classrooms is good for understanding many of the underpinning theories, but it definitely is not sufficient for learning how to be a teacher. Still, though, it is all necessary.

Room Arrangement

1. Use a room arrangement consistent with your instructional goals and activities.

The top arrangement is better for monitoring individual work and keeping everybody on task. The bottom arrangement is better for whole-class instruction and guiding group work.

2. Keep high-traffic areas free of congestion.

The bottom arrangement is clearly superior to the top arrangement in this regard. The top arrangement is very cluttered and difficult to walk around in. The bottom arrangement has a path that leads from the door in the bottom left to the teacher's desk, and the desks aren't overly dense.

3. Be sure students are easily seen by the teacher.

There's no vantage point in the bottom arrangement from which the teacher can see the whole class.

4. Keep frequently used teaching materials and student supplies readily accessible.

The bottom arrangement is just makes it easier to get around in general. It encourages movement, unlike the top arrangement, in which students will need to walk past many desks to get anywhere.

5. Be certain students can easily see instructional presentations and displays.

The top arrangement makes it so students don't have to turn their heads to see the image from the ceiling-mounted projector. However, the bottom arrangement hardly makes the image impossible to see.

My contributions to the WebQuest wikis.

I made one contribution to the section dedicated to strong introductions. Mine was the one about Monarch butterflies. Some other parts of the webquest weren't terribly strong, but I felt the introduction was good to get students going.

I also made a contribution to the section about weak role choice components. I thought there were some outstanding components to the WebQuest as a whole, but it involved no role choice whatsoever.

In addition, I submitted a contender for the Worst Conclusion Ever contest. This is the worst conclusion. It's all another task for students to do. It doesn't do anything you told us makes a good conclusion, and it does everything you told us makes a bad conclusion. It is the Worst Conclusion.

Maine Memory Network

The division between English and social studies has always seemed odd to me. After all, English is a social study in the most basic sense -- the purpose of reading literature is to get a view of how people interacted in other times and places. With this in mind, many of the exhibits online at the Maine Memory Network could be used in an English classroom. Reading primary sources is an essential part of studying literature of the time. Also, because the Maine Memory Network focuses on Maine, students will be able to have more of a connection to the material. For instance, while reading a book that takes place around the time of the Civil War, we could access documents pertaining to what things were like in Maine at that time. We could then compare and contrast these two accounts.

Copyright and Fair Use

1. A student snaps in half a CD-ROM the teacher really needed for her next class. The teacher decides to make a back-up copy of all her crucial disks so it never happens again. This is permissible.

This one's answer (That it is permissible) is interesting to me because it brings up one of the common misconceptions about technology. Because software was distributed before the Internet, people got used to the idea that they were paying for the data on the disc, or the disc itself, when they bought software. In reality, because data is so easily copied, trying to sell it would be a fool's errand. Instead, my understanding is that companies are actually selling licenses to use that data. With the advent of digital distribution, this is an important distinction to make.

6. A middle school science class studying ocean ecosystems must gather material for multimedia projects. The teacher downloads pictures and information on marine life from various commercial and noncommercial sites to store in a folder for students to access. This is fair use.

I like the notion that this is true, because it is something I was worried about. It can be discouraging thinking about how the world of copyright seems designed to work against us.

9. A technology coordinator downloads audio clips from MP3.com to integrate into a curriculum project. This is fair use.

I found this interesting because it wasn't what I would expect. I think it's great that a website like mp3.com is out there. Teachers need resources to have compelling lesson designs, and it's good to know somebody is willing to provide.

11. A teacher videotapes a rerun of Frontier House, the PBS reality show that profiles three modern families living as homesteaders from the 1880s did. In class, students edit themselves "into" the frontier and make fun of the spoiled family from California. This is fair use.

This was another case where I didn't expect it to be true. It seems to me that, as long as a person adds onto the work, it's okay. The trouble comes up when somebody just redistributes a piece of work.

12. A student tries to digitize the shower scene from a rented copy of Psycho into a "History of Horror" report. Her computer won't do it. The movie happens to be on an NBC station that week, so the teacher tapes it and then digitizes it on the computer for her. This is fair use.

I found this one interesting because the answer is that it is true, but that manufacturers are trying to stop it from happening by putting on blocks. Those blocks are almost certainly meant for regular users, but they adversely affect teachers as well. I also thought it was funny that the article recommended snatching up laserdiscs.

19. A high school video class produces a DVD yearbook that includes the year's top ten music hits as background music. This is fair use.

The article says this one is false, and the reason it gives says that it's because yearbooks aren't meant for instructional use. This is interesting because it shows me that, as long as I'm using something for instructional use, chances are it'll be allowed, with some exceptions as laid out in the article.

How to help someone use a computer

Phil Agre wrote this informative and interesting article, called "How to help someone use a computer." He writes first a list of things a tech-savvy instructor must tell themselves before attempting to help someone use a computer, and next goes into a list of rules which will be easier to follow once those basic facets are believed.

One important thing from the first list that I particularly connected with was his statement that the user "might be afraid that you're going to blame them for the problem." In any teaching situation where I am the instructor, I like to instill a feeling of peace in the person I'm teaching. That's not to say I talk down to them or make them feel I'm condescending -- I just try to let them know that I'm on their side, and that I do in fact remember what it's like being a beginner at something, because I am often a beginner at things.

An important entry from the second list is the one that tells me to keep in mind how abstract my language is. I often forget how concrete computer programs feel to people. I am so used to an abstract view of programs that that is what comes naturally to me, and I will need to pay careful attention to making my language as concrete as the user's experience of the program they're learning.

When teaching the class about Google Earth, I feel I won't have to worry about many of these problems, because Google does very well at creating intuitive user interfaces. However, we will be careful to try and go as quickly or slowly as people need us to. We will also encourage questions from people, because I think a lot of intimidation about computers is just people being afraid to ask questions.

Chapter 10: Going Beyond the Classroom

The final chapter of "Fires in the Bathroom," appropriately enough, talks about how to extend learning outside of the classroom. The last tip reminds us to support the learning that students are doing when teachers aren't around.

I'd never thought about it before, but that is a vital part of being a teacher. Students are with us for only a small fraction of the day. When they aren't with us, or even in school at all, they are still learning. They're learning things about their friends, or their family, or just subjects that they're interested in. As much as we can without becoming intrusive, teachers should guide that learning and make it even more effective. Teachers aren't filling empty vessels; we're making connections.