1. Last class of the summer
2. Past MACers
3. A look ahead
It is odd that it was the 5th day of class and also the last class of the summer term, but that is how it was. Class was interesting on Friday, we were separated by cohort again. It would have been cool to hear all the past MACers, but it was more personal with less people in each room. Then we moved to the School of Information that had a pretty cool interior, but the room we ended up in was not the most conducive to our class. We shared our panel discussions, and then discussed some of the other technologies we might see in our years of teaching. When class was over, it didn't really feel like the summer term was over, but as I write this, I look forward to possibly sleeping passed 10 o' clock in the morning tomorrow.
It was awesome to meet and listen to past MACers, not only because it gave me encouragement and hope for what I can accomplish, but also because some of their stories were amazing. We met a math teacher, a history teacher, and an English teacher, but they were more different than just their disciplines. The English teacher was from a school for pregnant and parenting moms. They have an urban farm, early education providers, and a project based curriculum that helps prepare those girls for adult life. How amazing does that sound? Answer: Super amazing. Then it was interesting to hear about the vastly different technological resources available to the other two teachers. One worked in a one-to-one computer school and the other worked in a school where his classroom/teacher computer stopped working shortly into his placement. I am interested to see how technology class will be conducted when we are all in our placements and in very different circumstances relative of one another.
As much as I am grateful that we have August off (for the most part) I am really excited for the coming year. I have waited what seems like a long time to reach this point in my life and I can't wait to keep working and achieve a long-awaited goal. I know it is going to be a lot of work, but I keep reminding myself that this is what I signed up for.
Fellow MACers, enjoy August and I look forward to seeing/working and learning with everyone in September.
Tasha-
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I would like to commend your blog style of implementing a pseudo outline of what you will be addressing in each particular blog posting (I might steal this format from you!). Then again, all of our professors have also used this format in their classrooms, and so again, I must commend you in adapting to a more "teacher" application to this course requirement!
Second, thank you for your brief recap on what happened in the other classroom! I was under the impression that we were going to switch halfway through and have the chance of hearing from the other past SMACers! But no, not so much. :( It was encouraging to hear that most, if not all, of the guest speakers that spoke to cohort B were all able to find a job right after graduating from the program! Again, not so much for the guest speakers in our classroom! It seemed as if all of them continued to move around for quite some time until finally settling into their current position. But as someone else pointed out to me, all of the guest speakers who spoke with cohort A were all in search of teaching jobs in and around the nearby Ann Arbor area.
Third, I also thought it was interesting to hear about the varying degrees of technology use in the classroom! I guess it just depends on where we end up teaching and which districts are able to support certain technology. But I believe that we should be aware of various tech implications for our teaching, especially if it just appears in our classroom one day and we are expected to know how to use it!