ILP#2

For my ILP#2 I chose to do a Lynda tutorial. The course that I chose was about basic job skills. It offered friendly advice that went in depth with what is acceptable in the workplace and how one should act. The tutorial focuses on small things that can have a huge impact on everyday communications. An aspect that I found interesting about communicating effectively in customer service was always treat the customer like a friend. The employee should give honest and helpful answers and advice. Working as a team is sometimes challenging so the tutorial talks about how it is a game of give and take. Some days it seems like you may be pulling most of the weight but other days it is someone else. Do not succumb to confirmation bias by comparing your own work. A fascinating topic that the tutorial touched on was asking questions at work. Bosses and experienced employees often forget what it is like to be knew so stay pleasant and ask for further clarification. Punctuality says a lot about a person's value of the work. When a fellow employee is always late it is noticed and frustrates the other employees. Setting goals is important because it provides an illustration of how one needs to manage their time. Finally, handling conflict is one of the most valuable tools they touch on. Fleeing from conflict is the first thing people want to do but addressing the issue is the first step to overcoming the conflict. One must understand why the other person thinks how they think and then find common ground for compromise. Sweeping the issue under the rug solves nothing and only allows those issues to fester.
This Lynda.com tutorial was very interesting and taught me a lot.

Blog 10

In a Spanish 1 and 2 classroom, the students are very diverse. Everyone comes in with a different level of Spanish knowledge. A survey is the quickest way to evaluate the starting point of each student and assists my understanding of where the students are coming from. The same survey at the end of the course can show me what and how much they remember in the course. In my first few years of teaching I will be self-assessing constantly and always acquiring feedback from students to see where I can improve. An excel spreadsheet is great for attendance, grades, and class averages. In my experience, seeing the class averages of tests gives me comfort if I did not do as well knowing that others did not either. It is a tangible tool to use to see if the students understood the material or if i need to go over some ideas. 

The most interesting week for blog was the one where we had to discuss Web 2.0. Many students found C.R.A.A.P.y sites that I had not heard of before and shared them to the blog. There are so many teachers in the world so it is nice to see there are sites customized to further professionals. Facebook is great but it is not used solely for education. Even with platforms I already knew how to use, I could see how others used it differently. Examples of this would be: a feature I did not know existed on Microsoft Word, a creativity aspect of Facebook, or ways to search for information on Google. 

A skill that I would like to learn is how to incorporate technology into the learning experience through hands on activity. Smartboards, 3D printers, and Microsoft Office all help me do my job but I am unaware of how to allow students to use these items to learn. Allowing students to use the Smartboard as a special reward can be a great motivator because it does so many cool things so I hope to learn what type of assignments I can do and how to implement the students' use of the Smartboard into the classroom. I know that there are great people at the Tech Sandbox who can help me which is great to be aware of. I can also join a group of professionals and ask their advice through a Web 2.0 site.

Blog 9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUUaC-gyDpY
The flipped classroom is a style of education that is the opposite of the classical classroom. The traditional class learns from the lecture and then takes home readings and homework to complete to practice. The flipped classroom is where the student listens to the lecture and learns the material on their own time and then in classroom they have homework.
https://opensource.org/
https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/open-content
https://sparcopen.org/open-education/
The idea of open source is to provide quality education that is widely accessible to all constituencies. This idea derives from the sky rocketing prices of text books and other educational texts. The belief is that education should be free or affordable and not just for those with the money to pay for it. Open content is educational instruction via the internet the is free or affordable and widely accessible. It can be a video presentation, images, document, etc. It is all legally available. Open education understands the importance of education and attempts to tackle the education disparity due to monetary costs. With the growth in technology it is now easier to share than ever before.

The two powerpoint assignments have been so helpful in many ways. All of my teachers throughout school have used powerpoints daily. Creating a lesson plan and then teaching it through the PowerPoint audio option was excellent practice and will be super useful in the future. The second assignment allowed me to put another education weapon into my arsenal: Jeopardy. Being able to make the Jeopardy game taught me a lot about PowerPoint and will serve as a great review tool for my future students. I really enjoyed these two assignments because even though they were tedious, it is still something that I need to learn how to do to become a teacher. Creating lesson plans and reviews are part of the job and so I must know how to do it.