IT3210

EPortfolio

2005-05-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

I've learned a lot this semester and am surprised that I was able to bild this portfolio and link it by myself. If it published without a hangup I will be ecstatic. Thank you Ms. Davis. Without further ado: My Learning Portfolio

Weblogs

2005-04-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

I was very confused by weblogs at first but now enjoy them. I was completely unaware of their presence before this class. Now, every time I pick up the paper, some article refers to blogging. I think this technique would be especially useful in an English class to generate discussion about a book, poem, or news article. Students would be encouraged to blog each other, posting their opinions on events or chapters. They IM all the time, so why not put this technology to educational use.

Final Reflection Paper

2005-04-21T10:01:00.000-07:00

Jane Henley
It 3210

After nearly completing this course, I have learned quite a bit of technology that will be useful both in and out of the classroom. Before the commencement of this course, I had several misconceptions concerning technology. I viewed technology as a cumbersome and time consuming discovery. While a lot of fun for young people, it appeared to take too much time and too much money to stay current in this area. Now my view has changed.
Beginning with our first lesson on blogging, I discovered an entire network invented for the dispersion of ideas and communications. With this new information, I began to realize that failure to embrace this technology is tantamount to isolation from knowledge. Teachers, particularly, cannot afford to remain cut off from this knowledge base.
It 3210 has prepared me adequately for the classroom. I say adequately because this technology is moving so rapidly that one year from now (before I enter a classroom), every program I have learned may already be obsolete. It has done a good job of making me realize this and had also done an excellent job of teaching me the programs that are in use today. As a result I know that it is up to me from this point to stay current on new programs and integrations. I plan to become best friends with the technology support professional at whatever school employs me. This person will be essential in learning to operate the systems in the school as well as keeping me abreast of new programs and integrations. Hopefully, this person will keep me apprised of workshops and seminars available for teachers in our district as well as nationally.
I certainly plan to integrate technology into my classroom as much as possible. IT 3210 has also done an excellent job of producing confident students in the technological area and has made us realize that this technology is a tool just like the blackboard and eraser. With technology, a teacher can bring the world into the classroom. He/she can also make the lecture much more interactive and student driven. Students today are more visual learners than they were even a generation ago and that needs to be recognized. The students we will teach do not know a time when computers, IM, cell phones, and Power Points did not exist. To not use this technology would be equivalent to asking me to write with quill pens—it can be done but why would you want to do it that way?
My only concern centers on the availability of these technological resources in the classroom. This technology becomes obsolete quickly and requires a great deal of expert maintenance to work properly. Programs are expensive and continually require faster and faster computers to run them. I know there are no easy answers to this problem. Even with more and more schools actively spending funds for this technology, the constant expense of replacing obsolete equipment is mind boggling. Much as the United States had, as a nation, to mandate education for every child and not just ones that could be spared from work, the time may come when technology for every classroom ( not just ones in affluent districts or states) may too need to be mandated and supported on a federal level. As we leave the industrialized economy for an information based one, we owe our future generations an education based on the technology and work environment that they will use.
This has been a very enjoyable and educational class. Its content will be very beneficial in a classroom as well as at home and other areas of the workforce. I look forward to using this base throughout my teaching blocks and integrating it into my lesson plans for my substitute teaching.

Website and Software program

2005-04-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

I evaluated Kid Pix and thoroughly enjoyed it. This program has been around for years and is constantly updated. Kids really enjoy using it and it is one of the few that offers (though rfather simplistically) an animations program for school age children.
The website I evaluated was http:// newslink.org This site provides links to newspapers all over the country and is useful across the curriculum.

The Next Decade of Educational Media

2005-04-14T10:22:00.000-07:00

The article The Next Decade of Educational Media presents a wellbalanced and realistic glimpse ito the future of digital educational. Author Cedar Pruitt looks at the technology shapping kids today and extrapolates this into the future. He postulates that a very different learning environment will be present in our society within a decade. I agree with him. While parents are still (in frustration) telling their children to turn off the cell phones, Ipods, computers, IMs, and study, the war it slowly being lost. Perhaps a realization that this is a fast informational world where the majority of time will not be used in deep thought about a subject but will instead be be dispensed across multiple topics in a shorter period of time is something parents need to address. Just as farmers adjusted to the Industrial Revolution, we may need to realize that, in this country in particular, we are seeing the end of an Industrial Society and the advent of an Informational One. To survive and succeed in this, the adults of tomorrow may very well need to be able to multitask and, instead of being an authority in one area, will be able to quickly become familiar with several areas simultaneously. While this sound shallow at first, this may well be the way the world operates for this next generation.

Journalistic Writing

2005-04-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

Project Name

Journalistic Writing

Description of Learning Goals

Access is useful in teaching students to organize their thoughts before writing. This is a program where one definitely needs to have the finished goal in mind before one begins.
The Standards met for this project are:· 5—Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.· 6—Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.· 8—Students use a variety of technological and information resources (libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.

Rationale for Technology

Tools such as Access are great for organizing a tremendous amount of data into one format that can be easily retrieved. Students would enjoy being able to organize their music by author, song, recording label, genre. This technology really makes a student organize their thoughts before beginning implementation. Otherwise, halfway through the process, they will discover that there are no relationships to be made with the data.

Description of Lesson Implementation

The “Create a Newspaper” does not lend itself well to Access from a student standpoint. If I were going to teach this, I would have everyone use the same database, such as my classroom books. I would use an overhead for instruction. We would:
decide what relationships we want to have documented. We could organize by author or genre, or difficulty level
walk through the procedures step by step with everyone generating the same forms.
generate reports, forms and tables and talk about whether data generated is useful to us. I think I would throw in one “red herring” so they would see how some information is useless

This program is over the heads of most Middle Schoolers so I think the classroom would have to be carefully managed for frustration.

Assessment

Access is a great program for someone that has a lot of data that needs to be organized and stored. It is really more a teacher than student driven program. I would use it to organize lesson plans by topic, goals, or website.

Other Places to Use this Solution

This program can be used at home or in the office as well as school. Recording all your music by genre or artist; recipes by type, low cal, or region; It is used in offices everywhere to store data business for inventory, addresses, etc.

What I Learned and What I Would Improve on Next Time

I learned that this is a complicated program that I would need to work with a lot before I felt comfortable teaching it in a classroom. I need to think through what types of information I want synthesized before I begin the program and be aware that even having thought through it, it still might not work. I think this works best with very simple projects. Unless this were high school, I would only use this program for teacher support. I think it is beyond the grasp of elementary and most middle schoolers.

References/Resources Used

Microsoft Access
Georgia QCCs
Professional Help Provided by Ms. Anne Davis

Pope's Death

2005-04-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

Pope John Paul's death brings into focus the fact that over half the people living have known no other Pope. Combining this with the facts that he was from Communist Poland and caused shock throughout Poland and the Soviet Union could be the basis for a great history lesson plan. So many students do not remember the stunned broadcasters announcing his election and the carefully worded statements from the Communist bloc countries nor do they understand the reason for these careful statements. I think this could be a very dyamic history lesson combining the fall of Communism with a study of his papacy.

EXCEL Project

2005-03-31T09:09:00.000-08:00

Project Name

How We Spend Our Day

Description of Learning Goals and Standards

This project ties in nicely with the “Create a Newspaper” Lesson Plan. As one of their news articles, students will interview students concerning one particular topic (How we spend our day), collect and analyze data, and extract statistical data using the Excel software program. This lesson helps students with their analytical skills, communication and writing skills as well as strengthening their technological abilities. It is important that students be able to integrate several skills into one larger project. They will need to be proficient in this in increasingly more difficult projects as they progress through high school, college and the work world.
The Standards met for this project are:
· 5—Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
· 6—Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
· 8—Students use a variety of technological and information resources (libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
· 11—Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
· 13—Students use basic research techniques with teacher guidance.

Rationale for Technology

Conducting interviews and then analyzing one’s data is an excellent way for students to learn to gather information and pull it together into a report that correctly communicates this data. The EXCEL spreadsheet helps them organize the data in a logical manner and the graphs that are produced helps the students visualize the results. They should be able to use the program to determine if their data is correct and if results make sense.
EXCEL also allows them to check their math computations for accuracy which is great reinforcement.

Description of Lesson Implementation

The “reporters” are given Interview sheets that are used to question their fellow classmates on a given topic. The information is entered into the Excel program. Students must understand how to enter formulas and how to arrange data so that the answers are relevant to their question. Students manually calculate the averages and then use Excel to check their answers. Charts are produced that visualize the results. A news article is written concerning this analytical interview and the charts are entered alongside the article in the newspaper.

Assessment

Again, I am finding this lesson plan extremely useful across the curriculum. Students work on writing skills with their article, technology skills using Excel, math skills calculating the averages et al, and thinking skills when they determine whether their spreadsheet conveys the data correctly.

Other Places to Use this Solution

EXCELcan be used in every subject area and inside and outside of the classroom. It is a great tool for organizing data. The charts provide a quick study of data that can be helpful in the classroom, PTA, home budgets, work presentations—anywhere that a lot of data needs to be synthesized.

What I Learned and What I Would Improve on Next Time

I did learn to KISS. My first EXCEL project was based on an intermediate project in the EXCEL kit. Halfway through I realized that generating the formulas using EXCELwas beyond my immediate knowledge and I had to start over with a simpler project for my first try. This reinforced the need to keep my projects simple the first time I try this with students. What works manually mathematically may become frustrating for a student trying to integrate the technology and math skills together into a project. Becoming bogged down in a multilevel math formula defeats the lessons that can be learned by this project.

References

Excel spreadsheet
Excel Kit Interview Worksheets
Georgia QCCs

Bloom's Toxonomy

2005-03-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

Knowledge: List the as many different parts of a newspaper as you can remember

Comprehension: Contrast the way an author writes a short story to the way that same story would be written as a news article.

Application: Write an article for a newspaper using the Inverted Pyramid Format

Analysis: Explain why you ordered the facts in your article the way that you did

Synthesis: Publish your article in the correct section of the paper

Evaluate: Consider the quote: "you can't believe everything you read in the paper". Having written an article, do you agree or disagree and why or why not?

Microsoft Publisher

2005-03-24T09:15:00.000-08:00

Project Name

Henley’s Happenings—A Classroom Newsletter

Description of Learning Goals and Standards

The learning goals are multifaceted in this lesson. Working on a project from start to finish helps children process, organize and prioritize new information. Transforming students into reporters and editors causes them to become effective users of technology in order to publish their own class newspaper. Additionally, editing articles to be published incorporates critical thinking skills as well as reading and writing proficiency. The Standards that are met for this lesson are:
· 4—Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
· 5—Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
· 6—Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
· 8—Students use a variety of technological and information resources (libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
· 11—Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.

Rationale for Technology

Even though my lesson plan calls for the ReadWriteThink Printing Press publishing program, Microsoft Publisher works just as well for creating a newspaper for a class and would cut down on incremental costs of buying that program. I think the ReadWriteThink Printing Press may actually have a newspaper format for the project but this may not be worth the extra cost if the school keeps Publisher on their network. This technology is great for students to learn to work on a project from beginning to end. It helps with organization skills, editing proficiency, working as a team to put together a newsletter. The technology provides a fun way for students to learn reporting skills and the fact that their work will be shown in a professional manner using Publisher should make them want to work hard on their articles and the actual layout to produce a high quality final product. It is great to have a computer program that allows the students to take their hard work and format it into a professional looking product.

Description of Lesson Implementation

This plan follows Days 8 & 9 of the Lesson Plan I- Creating a Newspaper-where the students take the articles that they have written and edit and format them for a newspaper. They will layout the articles, insert pictures, make sure their headlines grab a reader’s attention and that their articles adhere to the reporting lessons that were learned in previous weeks.
This newsletter would become a monthly project in the classroom. Students would rotate staff positions to increase their proficiency in different types of news reporting. Students would learn to take other articles and reports that they have written and summarize them for a news report. Students would take turns being on the publishing staff that actually formats the articles for the paper. Rotation of positions should allow all students to understand the entire process of news reporting. It also allows the newspaper format to vary from month to month based on the creativity of the staff.

Assessment

Microsoft Publisher is a great computer program for school and is a very powerful tool for language arts as well as other subjects. Students should take pride in having a polished finished product and should want to work hard to make sure their published product (that will be seen by other students and classes) is their best work. It should help them improve their editing and vocabulary skills. The word processing portion makes it so much easier to do this. Researching articles on a monthly basis should increase their research skills. Using the computer program Publisher helps hone their technological abilities while having fun on the computer.
While I would use a rubric to grade individual articles, I think peer pressure to produce the best newspaper would be enough feedback for the students. The actual formatting of the paper should be a fun activity and not one to be graded. Sometimes the less academic students can shine in this area and knowing that they are not going to be graded on this part of the project could allow them to be more creative. If the finished product fell off in quality, I of course, would institute some sort of evaluation system. I would probably individually meet with the staff and talk about how they could improve their product. I would still not want this part of the project to be graded--some things need to exist for a student's own personal satisfaction and not for comparison purposes.

Other Places to Use this Solution

Publisher can be used across the curriculum as students could use reports they wrote in other subjects such as science or history and summarize them for the newsletter. It, of course, could also be used as a teacher tool to send newsletters to parents. It can be used as a web page so that parents can get weekly updates on what is happening in the class. The uses for this program are endless.

What I Learned and What I Would Improve Next
Time

I learned that Publisher is a very easy computer program to use. While formatting my “newspaper”, I realized that this is a very powerful tool for teaching Language Arts and for keeping students interested in writing.
I did have some problem with the columns and I would have to use this a lot before I had students format their own layout. A template is the best way to go at first.
I never could get a caption inserted next to a picture but other people were also having the same problem. I need to experiment with that part further. I think this is a great program that should be on every school’s network.

References/Resources Used

Microsoft Publisher computer program

http://www.msn.com--online/ news service

Various photos found on internet

Visual Activity

2005-03-17T10:33:00.000-08:00

http://eduscapes.com/sessions/digital/activity2.htm- picture is worth a thousand words. I think this activity works well with middle school and high school students. It should generate discussion about the topic and the "little things" that crop up in photos that one does not think about without seeing a picture.

Power Point Presentation

2005-03-16T19:01:00.000-08:00

Project Name

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

Description of Learning Goals and Standards

This lesson plan was designed for students to hone their reading and writing skills as well as incorporate critical thinking skills while becoming more proficient on the computer. With the end result being the publishing of a class newspaper, the students learn to discriminate between news reporting and other types of literature. Learning how to effectively write a news story teaches them how to prioritize events while learning to format a newspaper should increase their understanding of how the media evaluates and prioritizes articles.
Students should increase vocabulary through this lesson, learn to communicate effectively and adjust their language to address different audiences. As this lesson begins with learning to write a news article and culminates with the publishing of a class newspaper, children should gain confidence that is derived from successfully working on a project from start to finish. The QCCs met for grades 3-5 are: #4--students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g. conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes; #5 students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences; #6 students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions, media techniques, and create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.;#8-- students use a variety of technological and information resources to gather information and to create and communicate knowledge; #11-- students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.

Rationale for Technology

Computer technology is going to continue to advance at a rapid rate and students need to be confident using these tools. Integrating technology throughout the curriculum allows students time in the classroom to become proficient with computer programs such as Word and publishing programs while still mastering the core courses of writing and reading. Writing their news articles in a computer lab provides time to learn how to use spell check and grammar to ensure that their articles are of professional quality before printing. Using the READWRITETHINK Printing Press allows the students to format their stories into their own classroom newspaper. The use of digital cameras to insert photos into their paper teaches them how to use this new technology.

Description of Lesson Implementation

Beginning with students examining a typical newspaper layout and format to gain better understanding of why a newspaper is read differently from other forms of literature, the children will progress to writing their own news articles. As they begin to piece together their class newspaper, they will be divided into groups to develop news articles for different features. Editing these articles teaches them to look for writing strengths as well as weaknesses and correct them. Finally, actually publishing a paper will help them learn to use the computer publishing program to layout and format their articles. The finished product is printed and submitted to the class.

Assessment

A question and answer sheet is used to assess the effectiveness of this lesson with ample space provided for student feedback. Because so much of this is group oriented and will also need a lot of teacher supervision for successful completion, a rubric would not be the best assessment tool.
As far as assessing the power point presentation, checking for understanding of the project would be the best feedback. If the slides with one's dialogue are not getting the main idea across on the first attempt, then the presentation is not effective and needs to be reworked. To me, powerpoint's strength is that it provides a grounding for the listener as the speaker talks. As we become more of a visual society, this will become more and more important to audiences (otherwise the mind tends to wander). A quick follow up to check comprehension of the main ideas would quickly assess the success of the presentation.

Other Places to Use this Solution

This presentation could be used with a current events class or journalism class. It could also be used as a marketing tool to convince parents of the usefulness of technology in a classroom. Cobb County certainly needs to be utilizing a lot of technology throughout the curriculum in their
presentation to sell their $70million project.

What I Learned and What I would Improve on Next Time

Power Point is a very useful tool and I have discovered that it is very user friendly. I was confused at first at how to click on the links because doing so only caused the slides to advance. Preparing a presentation such as this would be very useful for PTA nights as parents could quickly see how a lesson is created and implemented. I would have liked to have added sound effects (other than the typewriter) to this but could not find anything suitable to go with journalism. In reviewing my slides, I did feel that this project, while an excellent way to teach writing, is a very ambitious one that would require a great deal of teacher support for its success.

References/Resources Used

Power Point Software
Computer lab
Scanner
Digital Camera

www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printlesson.cgi/virtual/lessons
www.web.home.insightbbcom/
www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view_asp?id=249
http://www.officemicrosoft.com/ -clipart

Midterm Reflection Paper

2005-03-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

Six weeks ago, I walked into IT 3210 armed with the full knowledge that I was hopelessly behind in the technological arena. Armed with two textbooks and the mantra "At least I have no bad habits that have to be broken", I proceeded to boot up my computer and await instructions. That has been the last time I have waited for anything in this class. Blogging my way through a haze of terms, commands, missteps and confusion, I slowly began to remember to breathe again sometime in the fifth week. Breathing helps. While still light-years behind most of my class, I do feel I have made strides and am able to stop a moment and reflect.

Have my expectations changed? Certainly! Before this class, I had hoped to learn a couple of programs and gain some understanding concerning technology. I now view this as a field that requires a lifetime commitment to staying current. I do expect, given time, to be able to master this field and use it as one would use any tool that makes life easier. Particularly in a classroom, these programs could enliven everyone's day.

Already, I have progressed from getting completely lost in the terminology to realizing that, while I may be causing the glitch, it is repairable. I now know what address I need in order to blog and what address I need to read others' blogs. I can navigate and compose and even risked placing graphics within my website. Once I learn the correct way, it gets so much easier. It's still taking me an incredible amount of time to understand where I'm going wrong but hopefully the learning curve, while initially steep, will start to level off.
I am still not doing much differently with technology outside of this course since I don't have much opportunity for that, plus I am spending so much time just completing assignments. I am feeling more confident and was amused the other day when the subject of blogging arose and I was the only one in my circle of friends that had a clue what that was about. I may become the IT expert in my social circle by the end of the semester.

I have developed one pedagogical strength from this. Before, having always been at the top
of my class in my endeavors, I had wondered how I would handle the challenge of teaching a struggling class of students. Last week's scenario that involved turning in the incorrect Lesson Plans coupled with no memory of being shown how to access Documentation made me realize that one can truly become so overwhlemed that one cannot hear what is being said. I knew theoretically this happens to students and having now experienced it, I think I'm better prepared to empathize and (as you did) help them get over the sensory overload and back on track.

So, Mrs. Davis, continue to inspire us and power point us in the direction we need to go. We will blog and navigate as well as we can with hopes of composing a great final product. Will we improve--only our rubrics will know. You're teaching us well and if we look faint--just remind us to breathe.

Inspiration Project

2005-03-02T09:13:00.000-08:00

You can find the documentation for Inspiration Project at this link.

You can view the actual Inspiration Project at this link.

Web Page Design

2005-02-22T12:54:00.000-08:00

Project Name

Unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement

Description of Learning Goals and Standards

This lesson could be used in a Fifth grade history course using Standard 24. It could easily follow a discussion of the Civil Rights Movement. It could also be incorporated into the Eighth Grade as part of a civics topic to make students aware of how they as U.S. citizens can help shape policy.

Fifth Grade Standards
24
Topic: Post World War II
Standard: Categorizes the economic, social and political changes in the United States and Georgia since World War II including- segregation, desegregation and the Civil Rights Movement- patterns of immigration- role of women- advancement of technology, and- impact of drugs and gangs.

Eighth Grade Standards
67
Topic: Civic Participation
Standard: Identifies and demonstrates alternative methods of managing conflict.
68
Topic: Civic Participation
Standard: Formulates and defends positions on an issue.
69
Topic: Civic Participation
Standard: Recognizes the right of others to present different viewpoints
70
Topic: Civic Participation
Standard: Participates in planning for effective civic actions; demonstrates effective civic actions. 71
Topic: Civic Participation
Standard: Organizes and participates in activities for effective civic action within the community.

Rationale for Technology

Creating a website provides access to more students. There is less material available about some of these people amd what does exist would be quickly checked out. With a web page, everyone can read about a certain topic at the same time.

Description of Lesson Implementation

This lesson would be coordinated with Black History Month. After teaching a unit on the Civil Rights movement and its prominent leaders, time would be spent on lesser known people who also made a difference. Students would first be asked to think of something they did that made a direct impact on other people. Have them think about whether they meant for this to have an impact or not. From there, talk about how there have been people throughout history that also did this, knowingly or unknowingly. Have the students visit the websites to learn about the lives of some of these people.

Assessment

Students would be assessed using a short quiz to test their understanding of the material and to make certain that they had visited the website. A short essay could also be written . I think this topic could generate a good bit of classroom discussion so I would use this time to ascertain that all students were using this site.

Other Places to Use this Solution

While history is the logical place for this lesson, it could be implemented in a lesson on citizenship focused on developing an understanding on how one person's life, no matter how obscure, has an effect on everyone. Across the curriculum, it could be tied into an English lesson, perhaps composition or literature.

What I learned and What I Would Improve On Next Time

Building a website the first time is very time-consuming. I needed help inserting graphics so that they would not split the table and needed assistance in publishing this . That would be much easier next time. I would add more questions next time(since I wouldn't spend as much time on layout.) I would like to add an interactive website to the next one--perhaps a crossword puzzle or treasure hunt as I became more proficient with websites.

References/Resources Used

I used the technology personnel in the IT lab as well as the tutorial for Netscape. I saved graphics from various sites dedicated to Black History month. Several websites were downloaded from the Dekalb Library website. It had several ideas for Black History Month. The following addresses were used:

Lesson Plan1-Revised

2005-02-20T18:45:00.000-08:00

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Revision of Lesson Plan I-Complete Lesson Plan 1

Lesson Plan 1

Project Name:

Creating a Newspaper

This lesson plan from ReadWriteThink can be accessed from:

www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=249

and is an excellent format for turning students into lifelong news readers. While creating a class newspaper, students hone their reading and writing skills as well as begin a lifelong appreciation for effective news reporting. They incorporate critical thinking skills, reading, and writing skills as well as computer technology skills.

Description of Learning Goals and Standards

The following standards were met for grades 3-5:

4--Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g. conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
5—Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
6—Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
8-Students use a variety of technological and information resources (libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
11—Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.

Rationale for Technology

Allowing a student to take what he has learned and implement it physically allows the student to make that knowledge a part of him. Learning all aspects of the newspaper and then using the READWRITETHINK Printing Press lets the students format their stories into their own classroom newspaper. As they are transformed into reporters and editors, they will become effective users of technology to publish their own classroom newspaper. This is a very creative and exciting way to integrate technology into the reading and writing areas of school. Taking ownership of their product—checking for correct language, punctuation, flow of sentences—before they publish their newspaper for the class should instill pride in an excellent finished product.

Description of Lesson Implementation

This lesson plan has been well laid out-providing step by step implementation that ends with the class development of its own newspaper. Beginning with students examining a typical newspaper layout and format and discussing what makes this layout different from the layout of other texts helps a student begin to understand why a newspaper is read differently from other forms of literature. Introduction of the five W’s –who, what, where, when, why of reporting- help children understand how to report a story. Overheads provide extra support for students to effectively write their articles.As the children became savvier concerning the format of the articles, they begin to write their own. Dividing them into groups based on their interest is a good way to keep them interested in the project. Using computers for their writing helps improve their punctuation/editing skills and gives them experience working with Word or equivalent processing program. Internet access provides them with a link to other newspapers around the world to see different patterns of layouts.As the children progress, they should see a pattern for layout with top priority news articles at the top of pages. A lot of discussion can go into how to decide which story gets what priority.As students finish their stories, they will use the publishing program to layout and format them. Some schools may have digital equipment to scan pictures which the students will really enjoy. The finished product is printed and submitted to the class.

Assessment

The lesson plan is very comprehensive. It incorporates lessons for children to be fluent readers as well as writers. It has student assessments already printed for teacher feedback concerning the success of the project. It also has available for download a lot of supporting materials for students:

oInverted Pyramid Format for teaching children how to write an article for a paper

o Newspaper Story Format for students to follow

o Newspaper Feedback for students

o Reporting Guide for students

o Newspaper Writing Assessment for students

This plan uses a “process approach” to writing which I like: prewriting, composing, revising, editing, and publishing. Adding the newspaper approach via the computer gives the students a creative goal and reason to have a really good finished product to display.

Other Places to Use this Plan

The use of this lesson plan is almost endless. This can be used by students in older grades using a more complex publishing program. It could be incorporated across the curriculum using it for a Science Publication on a certain topic; for History studying a certain time period and what was news at that time. Studying about other countries would lend itself well to a study of news in those areas. In Literature, writing samples could be formatted into a newspaper showcasing students’ creative writing abilities. It is a great lesson plan.

What I Learned and What I Would Improve on Next Time

I learned that a really effective lesson plan should be able to be applied across the curriculum and also encompass a lot of extra support materials for the students to use to support their projects and their understanding. Students love using technology and this is a great way to incorporate technology into an area that a lot of students find boring—writing. I’m sure the first time I tried this project would take longer than the suggested two weeks but as I ironed out the kinks, I think it would run very smoothly.

References/Resources Used

Inverted Pyramid Format overhead

Newspaper Story Format sheet

Story Feedback Form

Newspaper Writing Assessment sheet

Reporting Tips overhead

Reporter's Guide

• Read-aloud resources Deadline! From News to Newspaper by Gail Gibbons (HarperCollins, 1987)The Furry News: How to Make a Newspaper by Loreen Leedy (Holiday House, 1993)Freddy and the Bean Home News by Walter R. Brooks (Puffin, 2002)

• Technology resourcesComputer lab with Internet accessMultimedia software Access to a library of images/graphicsScanner (optional)Digital camera (optional)Printing Press

• Web resourcesClass 4D's Newspaper Burn's Bunch News The Fourth Grade Times Mrs. Davies' Class Newspaper Internet Public Library (Access to newspapers worldwide)Ask ERIC lesson plan
posted by Jane at 2:25 PM 0 comments

Lesson Plan 2--Revised

2005-02-20T16:59:00.000-08:00

Project Name

Imagine That! Playing with Genre through Newspapers and Short Stories

Summary
This lesson plan can be accessed through:

www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=311

It uses narrative structures to introduce students in Grades 6-8 to one form of expository writing--news briefs and articles. By condensing a short story into a newspaper article and expanding an article into a short story, students will explore the ways that exposition differs from narrative. Students will sketch a short story from a news article and write a news article from a short story.

Description of Learning Goals and Standards

This lesson plan meets the following standards requirements for 6th-8th grade:

(1)Student read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
(2) Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical and aesthetic) of human experienc.e
(3) Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interaction with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and or other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features
(4) Students adjust their use of spoken, written,and visual language to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
(5) Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences fora variety of purposes.
(6) Students apply knowledge of language structure, language convention, media techniques, figuartive language,and genre to create, critique and discuss print and nonprint texts.
(11) Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.

Rationale for Technology

Both the use of graphic organizers (available online ) and the online Venn Diagram provide a creative way for students to diffentiate between expository and narrative writing. The Read Write Printing Press can be used to format their news articles and gives a more professional look to their product. This technoogy helps the student understand the difference in the writing. Access to the internet allows students to read newspaper articles with a more international tilt to them which will provide more variety for their narratives.

Description of Lesson Implementation

After first reviewing newspaper writing with the students as well as the elements of narrative writing, students are divided into small groups. Choosing news articles, they work with their Venn Diagrams to compare the short stories (handed out earlier) with news articles. Students are asked to share their opinion of the difference between journalistic and fiction writing. The 5 W's of journalistic writing are reviewed as well a comparison between tone, style and the use of facts. After reading a short story, have the groups work to compose a news article based on this story. Share the stories. For homework, the class takes copies of a news article and writes a short story based onit. Subsequent lectures can ask which type of story the students find easier to write After the stories are complete, the groups can format them using the publishing software.

Assessment

While this is a good lesson, I think it may require a lot of modeling by the teacher to be successful. This plan probably works well with students who enjoy writing but may be very frustrating for less motivated students. The rubric that accompanies the plan may need to be modified for less capable students. I do think that since students will spend most of their adult lives using expository writing and there is a direct link between reading and writing, it is important that they have a clear understanding of the two.

Other Places to Use This Project

This lesson plan easily formats to History lessons--Comparing newsrticles written about a certain historical event---i.e. D-Day--and a narrative about it---The Longest Day---could be explored to show the difference in the writing. Political events, natural disasters,humanitarian efforts are all examples of teaching across the curriculum which lend themselves easily to this lesson plan. Students will see a lot of expository writing throughout their lives and they need to be very comfortable with it and understand the difference between narrative and expository.

What I Learned and What I Would Improve on Next Time

I think I would monitor the group selection closely and make sure they are evenly balanced. Close supervision of news articles that can easily be converted to short stories will be necessary to avoid frustration.

References Resources Used

Article Questionnaire Handout
Story Mapping for Short Story Handout
Short Story Rubric
Venn Diagram Interactive
Story Map Interactive (optional alternative)
ReadWriteThink Printing Press (optional, to publish students’ newspaper articles)
Newspaper articles. Ideally, choose articles from your local newspaper focusing on city-level articles. You can use the Associated Press Web site if you prefer using online articles.
Copies of 3-5 short stories. If you choose to use textbook stories, make sure there are enough textbooks for each student. Choose something short enough to read in 20 minutes or less. Suggested short stories include the following:
“All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury(Set on Venus where the sun comes out for two hours, once every seven years. Conflict between the student who recently came from earth and the others who have never experienced the sun).
“War Games” by Nancy Werlin(Neighborhood kids in New York create an elaborate water gun war game over the summer. Themes of peer pressure and friendship. This is also an excellent story to use as a basis for persuasive writing by having students express their opinions about Jo and whether she is “the best friend” Elijah ever had.)
“The Scribe” by Kristin Hunter(Boy attempts to help his neighbors who are being swindled because of their illiteracy.)
“Thank You, Ma’am” by Langston Hughes(A young boy tries to snatch a lady’s purse, but he ends up falling on his face. The lady takes him home and teaches him through kindness.)
“The Dinner Party” by Mona Gardner(A group of people eating dinner and reacting to a poisonous snake under the table.)
Anthologies might provide additional options. The two I like best are Baseball in April and Other Stories by Gary Soto (Harcourt, 2000), a collection of stories about growing up; and Twelve Shots edited by Harry Mazer (Delacorte, 1997), a collection of stories about guns by contemporary young adult authors including Chris Lynch and Walter Dean Myers. The short story “War Games” comes from this anthology.

Chapter 6 Scenario 1

2005-02-16T18:54:00.000-08:00

S1.1 I don't believe Mia needs to add any steps. I think she is correct in assuming that she needs to make her students more accountable for deadlines. Her problem was more of a timing issue. As she becomes more efficient with the project, there will be more time for comparison of cultures.

S1.2 Perhaps having a list of suggested internet sites would help in collecting data. Going through a lot of search engines is time consuming. More time could be spent on the final product and e-mailing their partners.

S1.3 Interviewing all groups and particularly the lower achieving groups to determine what was slowing them down.

S1.4 No, I do not. Having students follow a task from beginning to end and be held responsible for the entire process is an important part of education. Having an adult take over part of the process removes responsibility from the student.

One thing that seems to be a recurring theme in these scenarios is the time spent on the multimedia portions of the project at the expense of other areas. I have noticed this problem with my own children. I think teachers may have to get stricter on timelines with regard to the multimedia portions. Adolescents get so caught up in the technology and making sure their presentations are "cool" enough but
do so at the expense of more traditional lessons that go with the theme. Even if it means a lower score, teachers have to make their students more aware of the time element amd deadlines necessary in a project.

Lesson Plan 1

2005-02-10T19:10:00.001-08:00

KIDS KHRONICLE
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AUTHOR INFORMATION:
Author:
FundingFactory Participant - FundingFactory.com
LESSON PLAN INFORMATION:
Subject:
Language Arts
Sub-category:
Literature
Description:
Read an exciting news article and then ask the students if they know how an article gets printed in the newspaper.
Grade Level:
Fifth - Sixth
Goals:
How to write a newspaper article?
Objectives:
The students will be able to explain how to complete an interview and a roundtable discussion.
Educational Resources:
paper, pen, newspaper article, and children's magazine.
Reference Materials:
Children's News magazine
Activity Plan:
Discussion Procedure:1) What is the childrens news magazine?2) What was the motivation to start the magazine?3)Discuss the types of columns that are written in the childrens magazine.4) What is a roundtable discussion?5) Who participates in the discussion?6) Why is the editor usually older than the reporter?Mid-Summary7) What is a transcript?8)What is an interview?9)Who selects the person to be interviewed?10) What is a briefing?11) What is a debriefing?12) Whay are all of the interviews and roundtable discussions tape recorded?
Method of Learning:
Discussion, group discussion, lecture.
Assessment:
Students submit a summary anwering the following:a) If you were a reporter for the magazine, whom would you want to interview?b) What topics would you wnat to discuss in a roundtable discussion? List 3

I liked this lesson plan because it was very concrete in terms of the objectives for the children. 5th-6th graders should be able to listen to a news article read to them and incorporate this knowledge into their own articles. As they write their articles, they will become more aware of the complexities in writing an article that is newsworthy and captures the reader's attention.

The QCC's covered include:

Recognition of relevant data
Distinguishes between fact and fiction

Lesson Plan 2

.
#1809. Reading the newspaperReading/Writing, level: Middle Posted Fri Jun 23 07:29:51 PDT 2000 by Kris Olson (olsonk@cedar-falls.k12.ia.us). Holmes Junior High, Cedar Falls, IA, USAMaterials Required: Newspapers Activity Time: Varies with student academic level Concepts Taught: Contextual Reading Skills
Title: Reading the Newspaper
Subject Matter Emphasis and Level: Critical-reading skills in reading the newspaper for 7th-9th graders identified with learning disabilities.
Brief Description of the lesson: The students will critically read articles related to local, state, national, and world events using word maps.
Why Do This? Critical reading skills at grade level is an expected skill for regular education students. Cedar Falls School district goals assert the need for students to develop life-long learning skills. Using the newspaper as a vehicle to teach critical reading skills in timely news articles will make the content more relevant to the students.
Content: Critical reading skills including skimming, reading for main idea and details, using contextual-clues, vocabulary skills, comprehension skills, and summarizing skills will be mastered.
Objectives: -Students will become proficient in the use of the Internet and using the Inspiration program.-Students will be able to identify articles by the geographic descriptors of local, state, national, and world. -Students will be able to locate articles of interest and readability.-Students will apply skimming skills, contextual reading skills, vocabulary development, and comprehension skills in answering who, what, where, when, why, and how questions. -Students will apply higher level thinking skills making connections to their own lives, to other subject areas, and other topics that could be researched for added information on the topic. -Students will experience self-study skills in reading the Bangkok post, a mythical newspaper in learning to use context clues and clues to determine word meanings.
Students will take an active role of choosing the newspaper article from online or available newspapers at school or at home. The activity will relate to the English, social studies, and science content areas. The students will need to be able to read the level of reading that is included in the newspaper in order to master the skills in this unit. Instilling an interest in the world around them and relating news to their own lives will be important in ensuring that the work done is deemed important to the students. Basic contextual reading skills of reading for meaning, reading for main idea and details will be prerequisites for this unit. These skills may also be taught through the use of the news articles. The students may find the vocabulary in some articles to be difficult. But as they work through the basic questions, hopefully, using contextual clues will become more automatic and fluent.
Assessment
Students will use the word map template to organize their reading and list the answers they find in order to organize their thoughts. As an initial activity, all students will complete a word map on the same news article and discuss how they found their information and compare their work. The word map will serve as an assessment of the student's progress. As they progress, the connections they make will exemplify their higher thinking skills. As the students keep a notebook containing their reviews, they will assess their own progress, the ease at which they are able to find information, read for meaning, comprehend, and make connections. As the students become proficient in using the word map for reading the newspaper, they will be able to apply the word map format to other classes. Each student will be required to use a word map for use in another class, whether to help in reading a novel, for reading a content area assignment, or setting up a word map for studying for a test. Each of these will be samples of mastery of this process.
Teaching Strategies
The students will learn by doing in this unit. As the use of the newspaper becomes more fluent, their world of understanding will expand. The students will be allowed to choose their own newspaper articles, with certain requirements and stipulations. The articles will need to be at least six paragraphs in length, not be a caption to a picture or illustration, and be from the news section of the newspaper. The skill of underlining basic answers to the questions as they use articles cut out from the newspaper, highlighting or underlining in the text, or copying an article from the computer onto the clipboard, will be a skill practiced to mastery. Becoming proficient in reading articles in the newspaper is a lifelong learning skill that can carry over into the work world and everyday life. Making connections to each student's experiences, to content area reading, to units in science, math, social studies will become a positive outcome. There are some students for whom reading the newspaper is too difficult and tedious at this time. Reading the article to the student would allow the student to determine answers to who, what, when, where, why, how questions on the word map. Then from the word map the student could make connections, as well. Selecting articles for these students would also be a way to tailor their instruction to more manageable articles.Materials and Resources
Newspapers available in the school library include, The Waterloo Courier, Des Moines Register, Chicago Tribune; the Waterloo Courier supports teachers in providing an in-service with units that can be applied to the regular classroom instruction. The use of the internet lab at school, computers that are networked in each classroom that are available to students, and the use of individual computers that students may have at home are all technology resources that will be put to use. Using the Inspiration program will also be a useful organizational tool for each student. The following Internet sites will be accessible for each student to read off the Internet and save specific articles to the clipboard, from which the Inspiration program can be used to develop a word map.
http://www.bkkpost.samart.co.th/news/Bparchive/education/tchvoc.htm http://www.wcfcourier.com http://www.desmoinesregister.com http://www.chicago.tribune.com http://www.newyorktimes.com
Management
Small group discussion will be an integral part of cooperatively helping each other master the art of skimming, finding meaning using context, and summarizing. When the unit is introduced and all students are using the same article, after completing their word map, small groups will gather to discuss how they read for meaning, how they determined their answers to the questions. Helping each other with strategies will be an ongoing part of this unit. The pairing of students will be assigned by the teacher with mixing students heterogeneously according to general skill levels. Using the computer lab will be done as a class project at least monthly. The students will be using computers in study hall, at home, before or after school, as available and as is needed. Those students needing more help to master these skills will receive help in study hall, from other peer helpers, and from the special class teachers.
Support Services
Learning to use the Inspiration computer program will be necessary for the instructor, as well as time for the students to become proficient in using it. Using the Internet to read articles and find articles will also be a skill to master. Copying and printing articles, locating and siting articles, and the use of the Internet in all of its capacity will be an integral part of this project. Ongoing evaluation, updating, revamping of methods will be applied throughout this project. Using specific topics, geographic areas, sharing weekly in newspaper talks given individually and in small groups to the class will involve time weekly. The intent is that the students will learn from each other as well as learn skills individually that they can apply across the curriculum and throughout their lives.
In using the Inspiration program, a word map template is developed that can be used on the computer or hard copy form, which ever works better depending on the learning style of the student. The title of the article and newspaper is the top bubble in the word map. Then a skimming strand is set up with the questions, where, when, who and boxes or bubbles in which to note this information. After skimming is done, the geographical topic of local, state, national, world is determined. The next strand is content, with what, how, why questions and boxes provided for information gleaned from the newspaper article. Then the next strand is connections where the student is asked to note how the information relates to him, other subjects of interest, and areas that could be researched further.
Area Education Agency 7 o Educational Services 1Patty AcheyCutts, June 2000Adapted from Nancy Lockett's Unit/Lesson Planning Guide [http://edservices.aea7.k12.ia.us/framework/]
© Copyright 2005 FundingFactory. All Rights Reserved.

This lesson plan is fantastic. It incorporates technology, social studies, reading skills, geography,science. It can be adjusted for all reading lessons and promotes cooperation in groups.

Some of the many QCC's covered include:

Developing vocabulary
Reads variety of material for information
Adjusts reading speed and readjusts for comprehension
Examines explicit and implicit main ideas,details, and sequence of events
Promotes proficiency in technology

While I am unfamiliar with Inspiration, it must be widely used in the school systems and would be helpful for the teachers to become proficient with it. This is a lesson plan that could be used not just for a short time period but throughout the year as different units are introduced. The newspaper should become a very familiar and comfortable source of information for students and incorporating it into their school year would reinforce what they (the students) should do with the paper throughout their adult lives--read it daily and carefully;think about the articles and make decisions concerning the facts found within its pages.

Chapter 10

2005-02-10T10:23:00.000-08:00

"Next month, we're taking a virtual field trip to major art exhibits around the world. ...we can't get to Chicago, of course, and the exhibit will be there only a short time anyway, but the web site will be up for the rest ofthe year of longer."

This quote was taken from Scenario 1 in Chapter 10 of Educational Technology in Action. This scenario exhibits a creative way to include all children in field trips that may otherwise be financially or logistically unrealistic. Trips to the Vatican, while not a replacement for visiting the actual museum , can be taken successfully via the internet.

I think this is a great way to close the culture gap existing in our country today. While travel is still expensive and time consuming and outside the budget of most schools, exposing children via websites to the many cultural sites existing in the world broadens their horizon.

Internet Activity

2005-02-03T10:22:00.001-08:00

Today, we are studying about search engines to tie into our ILE>A good academic subject directory ishttp://bubl.ac.uk/link/,.http://www.vlib.org/,http://lii.org/,http://infomine.ucr.edu/
The Big 6 ideas can be found athttp://www.big6.com/showarticle.php?id=16 http://vista.gsu.edu:8000/webct/startFrameSet.dowebct?noToolFrameUpdate=true&forward=studentCourseView.dowebct&lcid=92737882 d=16.
This is good for Webquests:http://edweb.sdsu.edu/links/index.html
All of this lesson is here:http://vista.gsu.edu:8000/webct/startFrameSet.dowebct?noToolFrameUpdate=true&forward=studentCourseView.dowebct&lcid=92737882

Internet Activity

2005-02-03T10:22:00.000-08:00

Initial Learning Environment Plan

2005-01-31T17:59:00.000-08:00

Initial Learning Environment Plan

Design Team:

Jane Henley

Metaphor/Theme Presented in Learning Environment

Read All About It!

Targeted Grade Level for this Plan:

8th Grade

Initial Goal for the Learning Environment

Critical reading skills are a necessary life skill. Students should possess critical reading skills such as skimming, reading for detail, comprehension. Students should also become aware of increasing vocabulary through the use of context clues. I hope this lesson will reinforce to students the necessity of mastering these skills for a successful life.

Sample QCC’s to be Addressed by this Plan:

Reads a variety of material for information
Expands reading vocabulary
Applies word recognition strategies (e.g. roots, affixes, and compound words) to acquire new vocabulary
Uses context clues to determine meanings of unknown words
Analyzes explicit and implicit main ideas, details, sequence of events and cause-effect relationships
Analyzes relevance of data
Analyzes fact and opinion, persuasion techniques, bias, and stereotyping
Applies reading strategies (e.g. literal comprehension, context clues and main ideas to specific material and subject matter.

Initial Idea for this Plan:

Students will be divided into small groups and will be able to choose from a list of newspapers to read on a daily basis for a two week period of time. During this period, the emphasis will be on:

Learning to recognize different types of news by its location
Skimming an article
Developing new vocabulary by using context clues within the article
Reading for detail and comprehension
Summarizing an article and presenting it to other class members
Discussing articles within their group centering on the relevance to their lives.

Initial Reflection Paper

2005-01-27T11:07:00.000-08:00

Having graduated from college in the 1970’s when mainframes, COBOL and Fortran cards were the staple of the industry and only the brainiest “geeks” understood the terminology of the computer, I am constantly amazed at the ability of all students now to understand and harness the ability of this machine. I have very little experience with using this technology in the classroom but am excited about being much more competent in this area by May.
Having watched my oldest child increasingly exposed to this new technology, I have gone from being skeptical about the place of computers in the classroom to wondering how many more discoveries can be made to excite these kids in a learning environment. To resist this revolution in our society by not keeping the best technology available in our schools would be foolhardy at best. My son just finished editing a digital film complete with sound, splices, and special effects. These skills will be carried forward into his workplace (and he is only 14 years old). Power Point presentations are the norm and graphing calculators are requisite at his school. To deny other children this same exposure would be tantamount to crippling them as they enter the work force.
I think technology should be incorporated into every facet of the classroom. The students in school today should be able to eat, drink and sleep technology because that is their future. Not only should it be used as a supplement to learning but it should be as basic as having a pencil and paper on one’s desk when one starts an assignment. The technology is advancing so quickly that to not immerse these students in it will cause it to be an overwhelming and anxiety-producing task for them later. It is too much to take in at one time (ask anyone in their forties such as myself who is trying to stay abreast of it).
Ideally, every desk should have a laptop, every student should have their on web locker, and every teacher should treat technology like a textbook—something that is basic to their lives yet opens the door to new knowledge. I have no idea how to pay for this but it needs to be addressed in the public school system.
In closing, I do not know what technologies I would miss if they weren’t covered in this course as I’m still trying to get up to speed in all areas. I’ll be more than happy to answer this question at the end of the semester.

January 20,2005

2005-01-20T10:34:00.000-08:00

Inauguration Day and inauguration of my blogger page. I've read a blog from a fifth grade student and posted a reply to him. It was interesting to read his opinions on good teachers.