Zotero

In one of the readings so far this semester, Zotero, an online way to keep track of the sources one uses on a paper, was introduced.

I had honestly never heard of this, so I was a little interested, but I didn't think much of checking the thing out until I was assigned to in class.

When I got to the website, I wasn't so sold on the idea of it.

• It requires a download.
• The website looked a bit much like Mediafire, an online piracy site.
• It requires an account.

So those are just the first three cons that I could think of when I visited the site. I probably wouldn't mind using it if it didn't require a download, but seeing as my laptop is getting pretty old, I am very cautious with what I do with it. I still have half of this semester, the summer, and student teaching to get through with it, and I don't want anything I won't use regularly on it.

I also thought that I already have a pretty easy way to organize my sources for papers and research assignments; I just use EasyBib. I usually make a preliminary bibliography if my first draft is not my final draft, and I save them on the sire. It's easy, and it seems pretty much the same as Zotero.

Would I give Zotero a try? Probably, but not today.

Photo Essays

In class, one of the presentations dealt with photo essays.

I just read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, and he intertwines pictures to tell Oskar's story. It was interesting to see that words and images can be combined to tell the same story.

It really made me want to create a photo essay, but if I am being honest, I wasn't going to go through old work just to make one just because. Time is precious for me, but that doesn't mean that I am still not interested. I would still love to make one to tell a story.

I think that these would be especially helpful in a middle school setting where the five paragraph essay is stressed. It would be a more creative way for students to express themselves, and most students in middle school are drawn to images more than words.

Creating a photo essay would make audiences, or students, use higher level thinking skills to decipher meaning. They would have to think about how an image relates to a book, short story, poem, or even a peer. I think it would really benefit students, and I would be more than willing to use a lesson involving them in a classroom.

Time Management

When I was in high school, I had a teacher who stressed that we better manage our time? Well sometimes, websites just pull you in, and you waste time.

Well, I was wasting time, and I stumbled upon a blog that had apps for Google Chrome listed and one was about time management. Well, I closed out of the tab, and then I remembered I still needed one more post, and then I couldn't remember the name of the blog. Oops.

I did a simple Google search, and there are many apps that track your time on certain websites like Facebook and Tumblr so you can get your work finished without too much procrastination. Sounds too good to be true, right?

I think tools like these could help students at home.

I can't find the link, but now that I am looking for it, I am wasting time, and I have a paper to write, so maybe someone knows of the app? I don't even use Google Chrome, so I am really wasting time.

Cinnamon and Synonyms

When I think back on my days in high school, I always wanted to be the smartest person in the class by saying the least. I depended on my writing abilities to get me there. I never used the thesaurus tool, but I knew many people who did because they wanted to "spice up" their papers.

A friend and I were discussing this at lunch the other day. She needed to write a paper, and she wanted to use different words than what she normally uses. I warned her that it could be a bad idea to use the thesaurus tool because sometimes the words are synonyms, but they do not make sense in the context of the sentence or paragraph.

Then I failed at being funny by trying to make a joke that she did not get.

Anyways, with more and more schools buying more kinds of technologies, how appropriate would it be for students to use a thesaurus app on an iPad or similar device in school? Would they benefit from expanding their vocabulary in a new way, or would the words be learned and forgotten?

Books with a Target

After reading Jennie's post, I remembered an image that I found on another blog awhile ago that was about banned books.

I just wanted to share it with everyone because I thought it was interesting enough to save.

Two of the books are books that are certainly read in high schools because they are a part of the literary canon, but there is even a children's book that made the list.

Even though books are a type of printed medium, the image is not. Students can be shown an image like this, and they might even share if they have read any of the books. I have read only three of these books, and I know that the three I have read do contain certain elements that not all students would be able to handle. Just looking at this picture shows how conservative we are as humans, especially in the classroom.

Presentation Software

As I was sitting at the front desk at one of the residence halls on campus, I started to study for a quiz for an education class that should prepare us for using technology in the classroom.

I was going through a PowerPoint presentation about presentation software, and I realized how sick of PowerPoint I can get sometimes. I know that I rarely use it, and if I have to, I hate it. Then I started to remember the previous versions, and I can honestly say that Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 was my favorite. I have had 2007 on my laptop since I was a freshman, and I still get confused. I feel like I can't personalize my slides the way I want to, and that annoys me.

So, my question is how can teachers try to eliminate the use of PowerPoint seeing as so many students (and even teachers) depend on it? There are other options out there, but would students be willing to try them and forget about the most popular and comfortable presentation software that is available?

What's the Deal with RSS?

Even though I think I have a decent understanding of what an RSS feed is, I still am a bit confused by them. I just do not see how they could benefit students in a classroom setting. I think too many distractions could come about from them.

If the teacher could constantly view what his or her student's is doing, then they might be able to work. I still would be concerned about students subscribing to certain blogs and websites that are not appropriate for classroom use.

Anyways, this is the website that I was talking about in class today that explains RSS feeds in a bit more detail.

Catering to Students

This semester, I am also taking a class that is supposed to teach future teachers how to work with English Language Learners, so when I read about Lily in Sara Kajdar's book, I started to realize that there is still so much more to do to help all students, including the ELLs that many of us will deal with at points in our teaching careers.


I found it extremely interesting to see that Lily was able to network with others and it improved her English, but it also helped her become more aware of the things that she could do to reach a bigger audience. Her story also made me realize that teenagers are very talented, and I feel like many of my teachers in high school forgot about that. I would never want to discourage my students, so reading Lily's story makes me think about possibly incorporating a "show and tell" in certain classes if possible. I think it would make students feel more accepted by teachers, but it would also allow them to share more of who they are with their peers.

Even though many of the sites that teenagers use are blocked by schools, it would be important for a teacher to figure out how to incorporate these new technologies so students can share them and bring what they do outside of school into the classroom.