Modeling Blog Reflection 1

Directions:

Take notes during the modeling lab session.
List, describe, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of technology use
List, describe, and discuss the strategies used for teaching and learning.

Response:

Technology:
~ Projector: a projector was used to demonstate how to use paint to create a storyboard and also to present examples of a movie and of story boards. The strength of the projector was it transmitted information to a lot of students without much trouble. However, the projector was on a cart which could potentially cause problems. It was not an issue this week but the previous week a child kept leaning against the cart and moving the picture. I believe hooking the laptop to the projector was a better option than trying to have students gather around a computer to view the examples. The storyboard video displayed by the projector seemed a bit long for the attention of the students but hopefully helped develop some excitement for the activity.
~Paint: the software Paint was used to have students start developing their characters and setting for the story. I suppose using Paint made students more excited about creating the story. However, the painting aspect of Paint I felt deterred some students from actually focusing on the typed descriptions. At the same time, the pictures also caused some students problems because they felt the pictures were not good enough and kept erasing the same picture. I think in a normal classroom time would have been spent better if the activity had been done without the use of a computer but I understand for this activity the computer integration was the point of the day.
~Flashdrive: the students used their flashdrives to save their work. As in a previous blog entry, the flashdrives were nice because students could easily save their work and the possibility of losing the work was minimized since adults kept the flashdrives. However, the inability to safely remove the flashdrives still concerns me. Plus I had some students trying to convince a classmate to save her stuff in her "locker" instead of on the flashdrive so it appears the flashdrives are just another form of technology performing the same action as already present technology.

Teaching Strategies:
~The instructor specifically ignored some students who spoke out by saying she was looking for a student who was raising hir or her hand. This actually caused lots of students to raise their hands with excitement of possibly being called on. This was a good technique but would have been more effective if the names of the students had been known.
~The instructor actually thanked those students who were being good. I was highly amused by this because it was obviously an indirect way to try to stop a few students from being disruptive. I suppose this was meant to help by the few disruptive children wanting to be thanked also, but I think this time did not change much in the behavior. It was entertaining though that the students did not seem to notice what the instructor was doing.
~ The instructor used an interesting voice for the majority of time speaking. It seemed as if there were two voices - the voice for children and the voice for adults. Occasionally the soothing happy voice would slip into a different tone before recomposing back into the original tone. I think the primary voice used in teaching was the teaching technique and the slippage into a different tone may have been caused by momentary panic, confusion, or just frustration.
~I witnessed one of the instructors tell a student who came in late that she could go ahead and sit down to work for a few minutes and that the instructor would sit and instruct her what to do. The student sat down and logged in and turned looking for the teacher and the teacher was off doing something else. It seemed like having the student get involved quickly was a good thing but then telling the student there would be help and not providing the help was unfortunate. I did sit down to help the student and told the student she could work until the last second possible and that I would save her work for her after she left (she was upset that she had not completed the activity so might not be able to make her movie!). Then the same instructor that promised the girl her help came up and told the student she needed to quit and save. I told the instructor I offered to save and shut down for the student and the instructor (I had seen this done during a previous week) and she said "ok" and then went ahead and instructed the student to shut down. I think this situation confused me more than anything else. I'm sure the intentions were there. The instructor was obviously trying to get this student on the same track as the other students but things seemed strange regarding it all.