Reading and Poetry, Aside Finishing Project

Seems I haven't had time to write poetry since beginning Grad School, but I have read some of Chris' on the http://www.poetrymelee.com/ blog. He never fails to have time to at least get words down on the page or jump into the river with a new bride. Now that's a true-life metaphor...Pink would like it. I am reading The Dangerous Book for Boys and getting into Pablo Neruda. Most interestingly, I am watering my spring plants every day and waiting for them to flower. I have never had the patience for plants and have killed most all I planted. I hope it is different this year. The baby loves to pick tomatoes from the vine and eat them while they're sunny. Note: Elephant ears take a long time to show.

This week I'm finishing this Ed Psych project with a sense of relief and new conviction. After all is said and done, I'll try to post again and put everything in perspective. Until next time...

Been a While

So, I haven't written in over a month. The temper of our group has not changed much nor has my opinion of this distance education experience in project-based learning. Constructivist activities like this are all the buzz in education right now, but what it comes down to is just a different face for little willingness to think, apply, or create anything new. What started out for me as an exciting place for personal growth has become defeating. The other members of my group are, at this point, only concerned about meeting requirements and getting finished. We have accomplished little that required a real, cohesive group experience. Even the summary that we wrote for the front page of our Wiki, remains disjointed and fractured, just as our group has been. I will post a few discussions that I have had with other group members just to illustrate the conflict that goes on in these situations, but all-in-all I have given up. Except to work on my individual contribution, and help the others when asked, I am holding on to the ideas with Second Life and The Paperless Classroom. We could have presented our project in Second Life, and we would have atleast been different in our delivery method, but oh well.

This is an interesting site on rubrics: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/rubrics.htm
I was in support of them until this experience. With this project they have been used only to "make sure we've covered everything" and take all the creativity and originality out of the project. Look for the conversations...

Until next time.

Conference Call

We had a conference call last night. I have decided to take a backseat, and see what manifests. We assigned group roles, and I am working with the other "Lisa" in the group doing outside research, that means research other than from the Woolfolk text or Pink's book. She emailed me this morning to let me know a bit about herself. I was grateful because she is one that I felt like was ganging up on me over proposing the idea on WebCT last week. I thanked her and responded reciprocally. I am currently still working on "The Paperless Classroom" idea, but yet to see if I will use it in the end. All the research that I do can come under the umbrella of "virtual labs," or most of it, so I am going with the flow. I don't want to be extremely different in the information that I present from the group, but I really have liked looking into the whole deal. Several classes all over the nation have experimented with this, it was not an original idea come to find out...as any idea is today. I will post some links with pertinent information to "The Paperless Classroom" next time.

Also, I set up a website www.constructechvist.com to post my Philosophy of Education, Resume, and other supporting materials for my interviewing process. Schools have already begun to post there openings, so I have to get crackin' on this as soon as possible.

Until next time...