I’m currently a senior here at rowan and I have FINALLY learned to write a great lesson plan… took long enough don’t you think? In my semesters here, I have never had a professor go into greater detail on how to write a successful lesson plan than this one. I always knew the basics, but I always felt there was something wrong.

Lesson plans are not made to be thrown together in a few minutes. They require time, research, and detail. Lesson plans should have more than less until you have really gotten the hang of it. I’ve also learned that they are essential to have in the rare occasion that you need to miss a day of school and a substitute needs to know exactly what to do. I recently went into a classroom that had a substitute with no lesson plan and the classroom was chaos. I felt so bad. There was nothing left for the substitute to do, but sit around and play games. The children were poorly behaved and the substitute was stressed out.

In the future I will always remember to keep lesson plans on hand for days that I can’t be there and have plenty of detail for them.

As for right now, I’m enjoying writing lesson plans that are clear, concise, and successful.

As a future teacher, my biggest fear is classroom management. What is the right way of dealing with children and poor behavior? I want a well-behaved classroom, but I need to figure out what the best way of achieving classroom management is.

The video at this site, gives a few beneficial pointers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iaj0EyxCfvQ&feature=related

After watching the video I realized that ignoring a student at certain times is OKAY. I learned that you could never fever one child or one sex over the other, children do notice. I don’t think it’s necessary to single students out in front of the class either. That causes more aggression from the student. Classroom management is important. Work can not be accomplished when there is no control in the classroom. A teacher should have set ideas on how to handle different situations before entering a classroom by themselves for the first time. A lot of my advice I have received from my cooperating teachers at the different observation schools I have attended.

GOOD LUCK!

If this site doesn’t explain it any easier than I don’t know who could. Lee LeFever explains just how easy and helpful the del.icio.us website can be to teachers and students alike.  

<object width=”425″ height=”355″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/x66lV7GOcNU&rel=0&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f”></param><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/x66lV7GOcNU&rel=0&color1=0xcc2550&color2=0xe87a9f” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” wmode=”transparent” width=”425″ height=”355″></embed></object>

Del.icio.us is a great new technology. It creates a network for teachers and students to share beneficial information. It’s easy to understand and makes websites organized to go back to and revisit. Bookmarking is a way for all of us to save those great websites we want to go back to over and over. The Internet is a great tool for teachers and students and its nice to be able to share the information one person finds with fellow classmates and coworkers.

Before going to the del.icio.us website I recommend watching the video clip first. It’s a lot easier to navigate and understand the website after watching Lee LeFever’s introduction.

These are strictly just my thoughts…

The article by James Paul Gee, states that a game called Pikmin is rated “E” for everyone and that the player has 30 days, which every 1 day is equal to 15 minutes, to save the captain (player). What I can’t seem to grasp is the fact that the game could potentially last 450 minutes! What kind of parent would allow their child to sit around playing video games for this amount of time? Even if they broke the time in half or in quarters it’s a ridiculously excessive amount of time to be playing video games.

This game, although I have never played it, seems like there is no educational purpose. For a six-year to be playing this game so often would be a waste of time. Are they really learning anything? I highly doubt it.

I have younger cousins that play excessive amounts of video games and I have yet to see a benefit. They often times prefer playing video games over watching television or doing their homework. What boggles my mind is that my relatives allow them to play video games before even doing their homework.

I think that parents need to reevaluate the video games their children are playing, especially younger aged children. It’s their job to monitor the games since they are the ones most likely buying them for their children.

Parents- find other productive things for your children to do or more educational games to play.

Rebecca Moore Howard of Syracuse University says, “the Internet is described as the cause of a perceived increase in plagiarism.”

As a college student, I use the Internet as my main source for research for just about any assignment. Libraries waste too much time when the Internet can help you find the information you’re looking for so much faster.

I’m writing this blog for students to realize how important it is to site their sources. Copying and pasting isn’t a good idea when it comes to writing a paper. With online websites, such as Turnitin.com, it just isn’t worth it. So many people are getting caught for plagiarizing today, and failing college courses because of it. It’s true, the Internet does offer a lot of “cheat sites,” but they aren’t safe to use. All a professor needs to do is type a sentence from your paper, in quotes, into google.com and they’ll find where you got your information from.

So remember, when in doubt… just site your source. Even if it is a small bit of information you’re better safe than sorry.

On average, do you visit at least four websites a day? Because I know I do. Recently in one of my courses I was introduced to www.netvibes.com and have become hooked. It’s the best way to organize all the websites you commonly use onto one main page. I know I personally check the weather, myspace, facebook, and my email all in one sitting several times a day. Netvibes allows you to visit all of those pages from one website. It’s GREAT!

You can even personalize your page with a background and images. You can share your page with others at your discretion. So I hear there will be more updates to the site in the coming months and I’m looking forward to them.

Netvibes is just another site that allows us to get to the information we want faster and easier. It takes a little time to get a hang of all the settings and set-up, but once you get it it’s really simple.

Check it out today!