QRI's: Oh me! Oh my!

The overview of our QRI’s seems a bit overwhelming for me particularly because I have not practiced using any of the assessments.  It’s my personal feeling that proctors should have some real time practice using the assessments before administering it. 

QRI’s aside, our class session was a joy as always.  Presenters did a fantastic job at covering all of the key points with such personality, our professor graciously provided us with free resources for our clinics and alas, we left each other with a handful of inspirational quotes for the evening! 

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"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." -- Albert Einstein

When I thought I lost myself during my most difficult moments, what I later discovered is that during those moments, I actually found myself. 

Nuggets, donuts and quotes

"Once children learn how to learn, nothing is going to narrow their mind. The essence of teaching is to make learning contagious, to have one idea spark another." -- Marva Collins

I shared earlier that, once learning sparks a child's interest the possibilities are endless. They absorb all the information that they are learning and begin to share their experiences with others and it continues and continues from one child to another.

I enjoyed our class snack session, great job to everyone with our power point chapter presentations and I am looking foward to beginning our assessments with our students.

Image: www. google.com

Cross Over the Bridge!

Ideal teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross, then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own." -- Nikos Kazantzakis

I would like to think that over the years that I've spent in the classroom, some of the students I've taught have created bridges of their own. I think that one of the best things that I could hear from former students is that they had fun learning in my class. I am far from an ideal teacher but every time I receive a compliment from one of my students it just makes me try harder to be one.

On tonight's class, I have to say that I like the powerpoint presentations because ti forces us to focus on the key points of the chapter. I also think that it gives me the opportunity to know someone else's perspectives based on their selected key points. Now, I am looking forward to learning more about assessments. If any of you come across really good, valid, reliable word recognition assessment tools for pre-primer and primer levels, please let me know.
( I took this picture from the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy. It is the marketplace bridge over the Arno River)

Opportunitty in Difficulty

In the midst of difficulty lies opportunity. (Albert Einstein)

This quote is pretty significant in that tonight's session was difficult for me. Yet despite the challenges of the Elluminate program gliches, I did learn a little more about the benefits of using Elluminate to communicate through the internet. The chapters for today's session were tough ones for me because Assessment is not my strongest asset as a teacher. Assessment intimidates me. The weight of its importance in the identification of student strengths and weaknesses and the use of assessment results for proper instructional placement is a serious responsibility for me. However, as the quote states, there is opportunity even in difficulty because I did learn a lot from the chapters, especially in chapter 9, like what to look out for when using assessment tools and when choosing reading passages and the chapters helped me to builid upon up my exisitng vocabulary of assessment terminology. The method of study(reading and extracting key points) does not meet my learning style needs so it takes me longer to read and process the information. But having to go through this method has given me real appreciation for what my students may be experiencing because my teaching style does not match their learning style. I am grateful to have classmates like Yoli, Dar, and Alan because they are a great support system. They are totally encouraging and provide different perspectives and insights for me to learn from. (Tonight, I went home feeling like Einstein looks in this picture from google images.)

Elluminate: Take 2

“If we don’t start, it’s certain we can’t arrive.” – Zig Ziglar

 This quote has a lot of academic relevance to me during this point and time in my life.  It reminds me that I need to act on my academic studies in order to arrive at receiving my degree in Language and Literacy. 

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Our second Elluminate session today had again a few technical problems.  For starters, I could not get Dr. Rivera to hear me on my computer.  The result?  We all had to use Faye’s computer.  This was frustrating because I really felt that we should have identified the problem so that I could have conveniently Elluminated on my computer during the session and the sessions to come.  Another technical problem that remained constant during the session was the delay that Alan had mentioned in his blog entitled “Elluminate Session part deux”.  The result?  More frustration!  Finally, one of the biggest technical problems that I found most impeding was how Elluminate was least effective when more than one person attempted to speak at one time.  The result?  Pure frustration!

Well, Ellumination Session Take Two aside; I actually look forward to the ‘Take Three’ Ellumination Session because I sincerely do believe that if we never started Elluminating in the first place, then how could we possibly arrive at getter better at it!  ;)

Image:  images.google.com

Elluminate Session part deux

"If you don't start, there is no way you can succeed" (or something to that effect)

Zig Ziglar

You can't succeed or go anywhere if you don't start anything. This quote is pretty straight forward quote. We discussed it during our elluminate session as well.

Today we discussed four chapters. Chapter nine seemed to be the focus of much of our discussion. A large amount of our time was spent on how do we compensate for the shortcomings of the different assessement tools.

As mentioned before, this was our second elluminate session. I have to admit that I'm not a big fan of the this tool, yet. I'm sure its effective when the distance is great between students and instructor. The delay when someone spoke got frustrating at times. The discussion that the chapters prompted suffered from this delay. I also think that we might have covered to many things on only our second elluminate session.

Thanks again to Dar and Faye. Dar, your a great host and Faye your insights are awesome.

September 17 Quote For the Day!

"Every time you wake up and ask yourself, "What good things am I going to do today?," remember that when the sun goes down at sunset, it takes a part of your life with it." --Indian proverb

What this quote is telling me is that each day should include something productive and beneficial not just for me but for others with whom I come in contact with each day. It could simply be to lend a shoulder to someone who needs some support, it could be to share your lunch with someone, it could be to give someone a ride so they won't have to wait around; it could be to call someone and just let them know you are thinking of them. Today I made 10 alphabet books for the kids I am working with as part of my ED 645 class. It feels good to know that tonight, when the sun goes down, the part of my life it takes with it did something good.
Photo by Faye: Guam Sunset

Chapter Presentations

Tonight went very well. The text book is a typical assessment book. Its pretty wordy and makes the same point in different ways. The chapter presentations really help put the assigned readings into a more understandable way. Yollie and Faye did an excellent job in summing up the chapters key points. The exploration of the Assessment book was also done today. The assessment tools may come in handy as we go about assesses our students for this course. We also discussed the blog requirements. That was helpful. It was nice to know that other are struggling with what exactly is required for the blog.

Chapter Presentations and much more

Class was great, glad to be let out a little earlier than usual. Listening to our chapter presentations was very informative. Everyone did a great job in presenting key points from each chapter and providing feedback to one another. Special thanks to Alan for providing the empanada. Thumbs up to Faye, for being the only one who had handouts. Sorry, that Darlene wasn't able to make it to class, I hope she feels better soon. I look forward to listening to Dar's chapter presentation.


I am glad that we were able to clarify our concerns about blogging and other pending class assignments for this class and ED 638. I look forward to ellumminating next class session, hopefully it will at Dar's place and I hope she makes dip! See you all on Thursday at the Teacher Center as we try to figure out our Class Management System for ED 638.

Image: (www.google.com)

ED 643 Power Point Presentations - 09-14-09

I learned a lot tonight! I think we all did very well in presenting the key points of our chapters, even if I did run over my time. But as I shared in class, it's hard for me to leave information out because I don't know what might be important to you. What I came away with tonight was: that children need a lot of reading and language experiences in order for them to develop their literacy skills; they have to have a supportive environment for interaction and feedback; that parents are key to their children's ability to succeed in school; that the learning process is multi-tiered and so complex and that there is a lot of room for adults to fail at recognizing what children really need and providing those appropiate supports for the children. For me, developing the literacy of students is a really big responsibility.

Hi everyone,

Nice attempt to "Elluminate"!  Really!  On another note, Faye, Yole and Alan:  I thoroughly enjoyed our intimate group discussion on chapters one through four.  

Looking forward to more initmate elluminate evenings with you all :)