Wk. 2 Comments to Classmates

Amanda Rhymer

MAC Week Two: Blog Post "Giving an A"

In reading the first four chapter of The Art of Possibility by Roz and Ben Zander, I was struck by several interesting ideas.  First, the beginning of the book appears to be about positive thinking, and the power of positive thinking.  I recognize it immediately because that is what I was taught growing up.  All you have to do is picture yourself doing....or being...or wearing...My mom was especially good at helping you channel your wants and desires into positive thoughts.  To this day, my grown children will still call her (or me) and ask us to help "think" them into (or out of) a situation.  My mother also taught me the opposite side of this coin, be careful what you ask for...you might get it!

The second thing that resonated with me is the idea of giving all of my students an A in the beginning, to break down the barriers to learning.  Several years ago I had a very diverse class, with every level of learner and every kind of student, it was a real challenge.  There was a lot of competition, both real and imagined, between the "A" students themselves, and between the "A" students and everyone else.  I was an "A" student myself, but as a teacher I've found that I have a real affinity for those students who work hard but don't ever seem to reach that "A" level of work.  So I gave my students the assignment of bringing in a 3-D cell model, made of any material they wanted to use, as long as they could properly interpret the required parts of the cell.  I gave the class three days to present the project to their classmates, and of course the "A" students signed up for the first slots.  All of their projects were elaborately done, made with purchased materials, some even commercial grade look-a-likes.  At the end of the second day, I held two of my basketball boys back and asked them if they had gotten some ideas for their project so they could present the last day.  They hemmed and hawed, it was too much money, too much work, too much time, etc.  You've all heard it.  I jokingly said, "Oh come on guys, I could buy a 99¢ hamburger from Wendy's and present it to this class as a cell model...you two have to be able to come up with something!"  Well, the next day they showed up, one with a hamburger still in the wrapper (a plant cell) and one out of the wrapper (an animal cell) and they did a perfect job explaining how they'd arranged all of the add-ons, condiments, etc. to represent the cell.  They both received A's on their project.  Now, I thought it was a fair grade, but don't for a minute think that my traditional "A" students liked it.  They thought it was cheating, or that I was playing favorites.  I tried to explain to them my reasoning for the A, but in the end I decided that it didn't have to be justified.  According to the rubric, the two boys earned an A.  In my heart, they deserved an A.

Maybe I should try giving them all an A in the beginning and see what they can create when the grade isn't the most important thing.

My Comments to Amanda:

Amanda, 
That story was classic and I can just see you giving that assignment. Those boys did exactly what you said to do, and they deserved the "A" for sure. When you think about the readings for this week, that project fit right in. The hamburger boys just needed you to be the encouraging person that you are. They did the task and did it well. The other "A" students should realize that thinking out of the box is a good thing and even the simplest things can turn out to be the greatest thing ever. Based on how this project turned out I would be curious to see what would happen if you gave everyone an "A" to start out with. 

David

Wk 2 Reading - Art of Possibility Chp. 1-4

In reading the first four chapter of The Art of Possibility by Roz and Ben Zander I found myself thinking about my own life, with family, and my teaching environment. I also found the Ted video with Zander  very enlightening because I saw my life through him. 
The Piano video as I watched it made me feel that wam fuzzy feeling inside, because both of my children took piano for a number of year. The stages of development  where  right on as I reflected on my own children learning the piano. My children are grown up now, daughter who is a teacher, and son who is graduating at the end of this month. Each of them showed the "normal" stages a student goes through, and I think those growing steps took place later in their lives too. Each of my children played a second instrument, flute and french horn. The stages of learning took place again, only faster I think. It became clear to that Zander was allowing students to find their own way along the learning path. Allowing students to do this allows them to grow at their own pace and therefore feel successful. 
The Art of Possibility really made me think of my teaching environment with special needs students. Chapter one talks about it all being invented. There are many assumptions that come up when people look at a class of special needs students. One of those would be how can they succeed in life, aren't they destined not to? I always assume that my students will succeed at something, even though it may not be what society thinks that should be. There really is not a set curriculum that I use to teach LIFE SKILLS to my students. That very thing really offeres up a lot of opportunities to teach students skills they need and can do as they become an adult with a disability. I am not just talking about a physical disability, but  cognitive delays as well.  This masters program and my action research project should give my students more choices to learn these LIFE SKILLS as they spend time with me as a student. 

I have mixed feelings about measuring my students. There really is no standardized way to do that, because each individual and each disability effects them differently. I can only go by what society considers to be "normal" and give my students the tools to perform tasks as close to what "normal" is. Society will just have to accept that my students are trying their best and that is all we can ask of them.  
Giving yourself an A  - I really found this to be a great concept and I think with "regular ed" students it could be a great tool. I personally always give me students an A as they start any new task or class. I really would not like to give grades at all, and just do a pass fail grading system. If a student participates and tries, then he/she is going to get an A. There is a time when getting an "A" for participating causes problems, and that is with siblings that do not have a disability. They are held up to different standards and sometimes have difficulty accepting that their sibling was earning and "A" but under different criteria. A pass/fail system would eliminate this issue. 
I hope I contribute to the success of my students every day. If I can help them live a more independent life at home, and then as an adult then I have done my job. The LIFE SKILLS I teach are they best contribution I can make to my students. The only other thing I would say is Patience,  to wait, to change, to adapt, to modify as we move on through their school life.

Wk 2 Blog - Where Do I Want To Share My Project

I have been looking at the list of conference it was hard to find one that was still accepting presenter applications. Networking came into play this time for me. I was lucky enough to have a undergrad professor as a friend on my Facebook page. She is involved with the Illinois Council For Exceptional Children, a conference that I would be interested in to be a presenter. I contacted her and she sent me three possibilities.
1. Illinois Council For Exceptional Children State conference on November 1,2,3, 2012 in Lisle, IL. They have closed applications but Bev Johns, my professor is in charge of presenters and says there is always cancellations. I will have to get that application into her this week.

2. International Council For Exceptional Children will be held April 3-6, 2013 San Antonio, TX . I have to apply by May 22nd.

3. ASCD March 16-18, 2013 Chicago, IL Proposals due by May 15, 2012
The last conference would be to the ASCD Annual Conference in Chicago.

The Illinois and International conferences for Council for Exceptional Children would be the most logical place for me to present my Action Research Project. Here is the Overview taken from their website.
Overview
The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) is the largest international professional organization dedicated to improving the educational success of individuals with disabilities and/or gifts and talents. CEC advocates for appropriate governmental policies, sets professional standards, provides professional development, advocates for individuals with exceptionalities, and helps professionals obtain conditions and resources necessary for effective professional practice.

http://www.cec.sped.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=About_CEC


As a special educator I would be addressing my peers, and I hope the presentation would prove to be helpful to others in this field of education. I hope to present my project as a discussion, so that the listeners and I can collaborate on how to improve what I have already done. Often times when teaching special needs children you have to rely on the suggestions and ideas of others, because most of the time you are not using a set curriculum. Functional Life Skills most likely will mean different things to people. It will be interesting to come up with a list, and then compare our results. By doing an exercise like that the group will be able to discuss what can be taught as a Functional Life Skill.
Talking about some of the Web 2.0 tools I used will help others there to engage their students instead of doing worksheets or group discussions. I also want to emphasis what the research says with regards to communication between parents and school. Establishing an open line of communication will help the students learn those functional life skills as they learn them at school and practice them at home.

The ASCD Conference would be my fall back conference.  Here is what the mission of ASCD is, taken directly from their website:

ASCD is a membership organization that develops programs, products, and services essential to the way educators learn, teach, and lead.

They are concerned with Best practice and offer conferences, online courses, printed books, and other educational materials. I really see this as a last resort. 

MAC WK1 Leadership post: To Publish or To Present

It is so hard to believe that we have reached month 11 and there is a lot riding on what happens this month so we can get to month 12. One of the requirements is to decide if I want to publish or present my Action Research Project. I have never been a very good writer, but I am a good talker. I think I would feel more comfortable presenting the project, as long as the Prezi portion of the presentation turns out to be awesome. I know it will take a lot of work, but I would feel better if I were to present it. I am comfortable with my teaching environment and have been teaching in Life Skills for the last 9 years.
Now the task is to find the perfect conference to present the project.

MAC Wk 1. Comments to Classmates

Wk 1 Comments to Classmates: Copyright Laws Here is my second comment post to a classmate:

Katherine Olivar Wk 1 Reading:

We Can Copy, Right? I graduated High School in 1999 and was starting my freshmen year of college when the mp3 boom began. I had just moved out of my parents house and moved into my first apartment with my friend Mike. We were the type of guys who loved to be on the forefront of everything especially the internet. My buddy Mike got a Job working for the cable company, who at the time were rolling out lightning fast (slow by today's comparison) cable modems. These modems were to replace the old dial-up connection that many of us first encountered in the old AOL days of the internet. Little did we know that this modem would open up a whole new world to us and put us on a path to total local celebrity status. We first entered a chat room in using a little known program called My Internet Relay Chat or Mirc for short. Here we found a whole community of collectors of a small music file known as an mp3. The first songs that we downloaded were the classics like The Beastie Boys Fight for your right (to party), or Ozzy Osborn's Crazy Train. Soon we discovered a new program making its way around the channels known as Napster. This was a revolution in the Person to Person, or P2P file transfer protocol that we were using in Mirc. The only difference was that you did not need to ask people if they had the file, here all you had to do was type in the name in their search engine and you were shown multiple hits of the file, and which location had the fastest connection to retrieve it. It was an amazing concept that me and my friend Mike wished we had come up with. Soon we were having people come over challenging them to find the most rare songs they could think of, like Bob Marley's Guava Jelly or Slick Rick's original Ladi Dodi. With all these fiends coming over to complete their searches we amassed a large library of songs, and soon became the go to apartment for parties and music lounging sessions. Many people would ask where the music was coming from and I would reply "From my computer." No one believed me so I would always give them a tour and show them my setup and my playlist on the original mp3 computer program WinAmp. They were amazed, but many of my friends believed this was a fad and would soon go away like 8-tracks. I was so sure this was not a fad that I used the topic of mp3s and the future of music as my final persuasive argument in my public speaking class.It was a great time of my life broadening my love for music and making my first few year of college completely worth while. Why did I start this blog off with this story? Because even though I believe an artist has the right to protect his work, I also believe that the trading of mp3's is not the nail in the coffin that record industry makes it out to be. I remember when I was about 4 or 5 years old hearing how the VCR was going to kill movies and ruin the art of cinema being seen on the big screen. The industry soon found out that the proliferation of home media not only helped the industry, but added on a whole new consumer base that they had never thought possible. I believe the same can be said for the mp3's. The proliferation of the mp3 only adds to the appreciation of music thus raising music to a new and higher standard than ever before. Before mp3's I lead a sheltered life, only buying the occasional CD for bands that the radio told me were popular. After I started downloading mp3's my musical education grew, exposing me to the rich sounds of reggae, the unique rhymes of rappers like Biggie and Tupac, and the eclectic sounds like radiohead. Mp3's forced me to broaden my horizons, listen to new bands on a whim, and go to more live shows and concerts than ever before. The mp3 was a game changer for many young people back in the early 2000's and I believe it still is for many youths today. The fact is, I spent more money on music after the mp3 age than I did before. Sure there are those that abuse the system and take take take, but don't forget about those how give back. Today we see a plethora of musicians trying to make a mark in today's industry who may not have ever had a chance before. Take Justin Bieber (no really take him, haha), he got his start by posting videos of his talents on YouTube, a video site with its roots stemming from the mp3 sub-culture of the early 2000's. With this new medium many more artist can fill the world with their talents, or lack there of, allowing the American culture to determine who is worthy of praise and who is not. This I believe is what the recording industry is afraid of, we the people now have the power to determine who is popular, not the gigantic spin machine that we call the Recording Industry Association of America. The RIAA now in today's world seems insignificant, the power is now placed into the peoples internet. Artists now see that they can produce and market their art on their own with only a simple $1000 computer and an internet connection. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame found this out when he released his own album off the internet all on his own and asked for donations instead of a set price. It are these situations that the big corporate giants hate because there is no need for a middle man any more. The creation of the Creative Commons is the next evolutionary step of the P2P transfer protocol, that was so famously smashed with the demise of napster, bearshare, and limewire. This new P2P system places artist right directly on the property the individuals wish to use or listen to from their own computer. By placing the option of fair use back into the hands of the creator we limit the corporate stranglehold our ideas and though have been suffocating from for so long. Creative commons is a breath of fresh air for the little man who normal stands beneath the shadows of the corporate giants.  



My Comments back to her: Katherine, Great Great Post! Ok, now I really feel old because I had no clue that a lot of this was going on in the music industry. Limewire, well yes I did use that for a time but not very long. I remember those AOL days and MIRC, in fact met some great people there. I am one who listens to the radio and base what I listen to from that. The invention of the MP3 for me just meant that I could pick and choose what I wanted, and even not the whole album! My barbershop hobby has also kept me in a box so to speak, because I tend to listen to that genre of music a lot! Did we share music?,Yes we did. We shared arrangements, not to steal them, but to experience them. We tried to perform them well, and make them better. I guess you can say a form of remixing! There I said it LOL. I really do fall on the side of Creative Commons, it just makes sense to me. Creative Commons just allows for expression of an artist, and the license for the artist to say hey you can do this and this with it. So In that case every one wins. Thanks for the education MP3 and the remixing culture. David

MAC Wk 1 Comments to Classmates Blogs - Copyright laws

Here is Katie Ross original post and my comment:

I feel like at this point we should all be well aware of what is copyright and what is fair use. I know my industry (education) and my company takes both of these subjects very serious and frowns upon anyone who violates the policy. As an educator if we don’t uphold the rules regarding copyright and fair use why would our students want to uphold the same policies? I love that my place of work takes these 2 things very serious and even holds continuing education classes about these 2 topics to keep all of the staff and faculty up to date on the rules. So this in not a topic that just gets swept under the rug in my environment, and no one turns their head and looks the other way if they see another teacher breaking the policy. What is it like in your environment? Photo from opensourceway's photostream via flickr. Another reason why I think the company I work for takes these policies so seriously is because we have a lot of material that is copyrighted and we don’t want anyone else to try and steal our copyrighted material, such as our school logo, which is very unique to us. We always say in my office “ we have to protect the brand” whenever we our designing something that would require us to use the school logo. One thing that I think is a growing concern is the ReMix culture. Don’t get me wrong I love some of those videos on YouTube that are remixed. I get a kick out of them, I post them on Facebook for other people to view, maybe I shouldn't be doing that. I also think, as the presidential election gets closer we will see more and more of those types of videos being created. At some point we will have to decided how far is to far, what is the time limit one can use a video clip to remix something. Very interesting food for thoughts! Katie Ross  


My Comment: Hi Katie, Full Sail is a great place and I am glad they protect themselves with the copyright laws. I agree as educators we should know about that, but I do have to say personally I learned some new information this month. Your working environment keep you up to date and provides training for you, that is awesome. I have been at my high school now for 9 years and have only had one in-service training on this issue. Is that right? Of course not. I don't think I have violated any of the copyright laws so far. My students having special needs so far have not been in situations where this issue readily comes up. I will "train" for sure when it does. The issue of remixing, I am so new to that whole thing it is hard to give an opinion on it. I watched that video twice, I was in awe. I had no clue! Right now I fall on the side of creativity, so remixing is that for sure,as long as the original artist is good with it. If not then the laws need to be tweak to address the whole remix scene. David

MAC Week 1 Blog Reading: Copyright Issues, parts 1-3, information overload

EDM Week1 Blog

The copyright laws have been an issue that I must say I don’t always understand. The EMDT program has made this issue a lot clearer in my mind. The first section of this weeks “reading/Videos” made it clear of what the basic concepts of the present copyright laws are. I always knew that if it was a fixed work, such as a book, play, or music then you could not use it with out permission. Now having said that, did I always live by that rule. Some of you know that I am a barbershopper and I have been singing that genre for 31 years. Barbershop music is one of the four original art forms, so its roots come from as far back as African slave music. As the genre came into full swing, the music was about songs that were simple and were known to everyone. The harmonies are based on 7 chords, so were arrangements always written down? NO they were not, and those that were, many were passed around. I started in 1979 and that was still going on, not because we did not respect the arranger and composer, it was the urge to make it better. Now all of that has changed, and arrangers/composers are there to help you. They arrange for you, and give you permission to sing their songs. The whole music scene in Brazil!! I had no clue that was going on, I had to watch it twice so I could fully understand what was going on. Perhaps it is my age, but I did not know anything about the remixing of songs. It makes sense after watching the video twice, and with laptops like a Mac Pro it is clear how it is done.

The concept of Fair Use really seems to be something that I am not sure that I want to cross that line. The opening is very small. I love how the video said that if you can teach the lesson with out the copyrighted material then don’t use it. I can see using small clips here and there, but in the end I would be more comfortable having permission. The eye opening moment for me was seeing historical videos that are not available any more because of the copyright laws. Part of our history is lost, and I think that is a shame. Where should we go with all of this copyright talk? The section on Creative Commons makes perfect sense to me. It gives the creator the flexibility to share the work on his/her terms. Sharing allows for more to be created from anyone, and the original can get better and better. It is a win, win situation if you ask me.