Reflective+Journal+Week++3

This week seems to be easier and we seem to be adjusting a littler better to all that we are doing. I personally kon't feel panic as much as I did the first week when I had to remember how I did something. I typed a letter asking parental permission to issue e-mails for a pilot group of students to create a wiki. The superintendent must okay this before we can send it out. I was thinking of doing some open ended essay questions and possibly allow the students to add pictures to their postings if that is possible. I am unsure of how to teach the kids how to create the wikki and I have asked our computer teacher to help me with this. I am using this for extra credit in one class only to see how it goes.

We are planning our assessment for the students. We have been given permission to issue e-mail accounts to our students to take the assessment. We are wondering our difficult it will be to enter all this information into the computer. We tried passing a paper around a few days ago to get students to give us their e-mail address. When we looked them over, we could not read their handwriting. This is one of the main reasons that I don't give many essay questions. It is too difficult to get through reading over 100 of them. I know it is a reason that they don't score well on the extended response questions on the OAT tests.

When thinking about whether I am a constructivist teacher, I think mostly that I am. I tell the students that it is not about how smart they are but about how hard they are willing to work. So many of my students do not have a strong work ethic. They miss a lot of school, they are sloppy in their work, they don't utilize the classroom time that I give them to complete the work and they have poor study habits. Am I expected to do it all for them?

I have appreciated all the tutorials for using the web 2.0 tools. I struggle to get through each one and if I don't use these doors often enough, I will forget. It is comforting to know I can refer back to them. Our team leader, Kathy has been great with the help she gives us and we have JoAnna, who comes in to relieve us 2 periods a week so we can concentrate a little better. I really like what we are doing, I just feel a little rushed at times.