Oct. 27, 06: P.D. Day

Today is P.D. Day, and Mr. Yake and several teachers put together a workshop for all teachers. I believe that it is very important, as Mr. Yake put it, to have shared beliefs and understanding among all staff. Staff should be working together for the best interest of the school and the students, so mutual understanding and support are essential. It is good to promote diversity, but if every teacher utilizes a different system in teaching and dealing with students, then the school would be very dissociated. One grade moves into the new school year, and the students have to get used to a new system all over again, and the teacher has to get used to the students with a different set of learning strategies. Therefore, I feel strongly that everyone in the school should cooperate to strive towards a holistic view of presenting education, which I find it happening in Greensborough since my first day.

Ann gave a little presentation on how to help poor readers improve. She suggested that we need to prepare a safe place where they can help each other. To me, it is very true. If I'm not good at something, I would feel intimidated, because I would be conscious of how others see me -- they must think that I'm bad. Learning is not a cautious process, so students should not be taught to be afraid of exposing what they are not good at. They need to be given an opportunity to demonstrate what they know, and to receive guidance in how they can improve. And it should be something between the teacher and the student, as well as among the students. They should not be intimidated by each other, because they are there to support and learn from each other. It is a teacher's responsibility to create a space where it's ok for students to make mistakes, because making mistakes is the first step to correcting them.

I like the activity that Ellen conducted, where each of us were given a card with a reading strategy, and we had to find another person and ask them what they think the strategy means. I shared a card with Ann, and it says "Making Connections: text to text". We discussed it with Jen (Ms. Jones), and I pointed out something. In our discussion, text means print. However, I think that text encompasses more than print resources. It includes images, movies, websites, and all the new media that is out there. Ann wasn't sure if this is what text implies, but we concluded that it is, because new media doesn't fit into "self" or "world", so it must belong to text. It is not until last year that I become aware of all kinds of literature around us, not only books and articles, but also music, dance, and new media technologies. It might seem overwhelming at the beginning, but these "new" kinds of knowledge should be available to us as well as our students, because they are part of our environment, and printed materials are not the only sources of information and knowledge.

Talking about new media technology, I realized that a lot of teachers felt enstranged to the computer while Sean was demonstrating how to set up the report card online. I think that teachers need to be ensured a safe environment while learning something new, as much as our students. Most teachers feel that using the computer is hard, just because they are not taught the basic skills. They need to understand why clicking this button goes to the next page, in order to feel comfortable using it. If they can't make sense of it, then the technology would only be an added-on burden that they must use, and incorporate in their classroom. The fear would overpower the purpose of including technology in education. Therefore, I think that teachers should be well equipped and prepared to accept new media technologies, to become role models for our students that live in the modern and future world.

I'm also surprised by the supply of labtops in the library. My New Media Literacy and Culture course requires us to do a project on new media technology, and it can be anything that relates to the classroom. I thought about making a homepage for Ms. Carson's class, which might include things like classroom news, school news, fun links to educational games, a bulletin board for upcoming activities in the community (e.g. colouring contests, Markham Fair), and an online blog for the students. I actually thought about doing an online blog first, but it would make more sense when it's put into perspective with the homepage. Once a week, the students can type a journal entry (in a few lines) about anything. They can also post pictures of their work that are pre-scanned by the teacher, and the students can reply to any entry. It serves as a social tool for students to interact. After today's workshop, I felt more strongly about it. Mr. Herridge said that some students think that a writer is someone sitting on the desk with a pen and a piece of paper, which is not true. By writing in the blog, children are given a space to express themselves in a new way, without pens and papers, where they can be encouraged as writers of their own life.