How to Get Rid of Youtube Ads on Chrome... Forever!

Like the title says, this is just a way to save time before you watch your youtube videos. If you watch 1 video per day and each video is roughly 16 seconds long, in 1 year you will have wasted roughly 1 hour and 30 minutes on watching advertisements. THAT is a waste of time... So here is my vid. You're welcome! :)

Keeping Up With the Changes

The world is changing at a rapid pace but the skills we are learning are rapidly lagging behind. So how can we teach our kids relevant and up-to-date things if it is going to be replaced by something else anyway?

I just finished reading a post by Leo Babauta about 9 essential skills that kids should learn which can be read here:

http://zenhabits.net/kid-skills/

On his post he talks about the skills are really important for kids to learn so they can tackle changes as they come. The 9 skills he talks about are asking questions, solving problems, taking on projects, finding passions, being independent, being happy on their own, being compassionate, learning tolerance, and dealing with change.

I agree that that these skills are crucial, and no matter what subject is at hand for them, they will be able to adapt to their tasks and challenges. They will be able to learn new things by just asking and solving problems on their own and truly understanding the essence of a task without being so dependent on others.

Whilst reading this post, I also came across an interesting concept called “unschooling”, that I have never heard of before. The man that wrote this blog post is not putting his children in school but is teaching, what he believes is more important, and I am interested to see what he learns from taking this approach. As an educator furthering my education, I often time see so many negative things about schools and really don’t see change happening fast enough, keeping up with our times, or being relevant in preparing our children to their full potential. I do not have children but I really wonder how their “experiment” will turn out. For now, he has added another interested reader to his webpage: unschoolery.com .

Something Seriously Wrong with Curriculums

Do you have a gut feeling that there is something inherently wrong with our curriculum?

Grant Wiggins really hits the nail on the nose with this post:

http://grantwiggins.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/everything-you-know-about-curriculum-may-be-wrong-really/

Essentially what he is getting at, is that curriculums are not really focusing on making the students learn and use that knowledge to grow or expand. We are just using learning content that already exists, without a chance to advance further than that. If we compare it to teaching soccer to kids, we are basically only teaching them the rules and techniques in lectures but not letting them experience the game.

This was such an eye opener for me as an educator and really helps me see that we are so focused on the “system”, that we are not focusing on what is of importance and conducive to helping our students learn. One of the points that Grant made, that really stuck with me is that that if this formula that we have created for our students to learn and retain things works so well, then why are such things like stories and movies often times much more memorable than the classes we have taken?

This really affects me by making me think about what I’m teaching in my classes and how I can make them better. Sitting down and thinking about each class that I actually teach, most of the time I AM just teaching the “rules of the game” instead of letting them play the game where the ball comes from all angles, and unexpected passes are tossed their way by different players.

One great thing about the establishment I currently work at is that I have the freedom to experiment with my students.  This article has really made me think about where my lesson plans should be heading. The real challenge might be getting the students to play “the game”?  :) 

Prezi: Setting End Goals

Hey guys. Here is my Prezi, rubric and worksheet on setting end goals and means goals.  Hope you find this helpful.

Prezi

Rubric

Worksheet


If any of you want to do this exercise, here is the youtube video where I got the exercise from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8eU5Pc-y0g

Wide-Eyed Students

Teaching how to count is definitely my favorite lesson. This lesson is for beginner adults. First of all, I go in and write a ridiculously long number on the board, and ask my students if they can count it. After a few attempts the room gets quiet and I tell them that by the end of this lesson everyone will be able to read that number. They all they have a look of disbelief in their eyes.

I first make sure they can count until 999 and guarantee them that if they can count until that number, the rest is a piece of cake. I proceed by asking them if they can count that same ridiculously long number in Korean, and of course, most of them can. The problem is that when they count in English, they just try to read numbers as if they read words, by memorization and from right to left. 

I explain that in Korean the name of the numbers change after every 4 digits (so the thousandth place) starting from right to left. In English, the name of the numbers change every 3rd digit (the hundredth place) instead, also starting from right to left. So to make it even easier, I just tell them that the commas have names attached to them. Starting from right to left, the first one is called a thousand, the second one is million, the third one is billion and so on. This makes them understand in an easier way, how counting in English is the same, except that the name changing placement is one digit before the Korean way of counting. As soon as they understand the relationship, they find it really easy and I give them some exercises they can work on and everyone seems to actually enjoy finding out how to count really long numbers. 

Then I tell them how not to count and show them this funny video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZjqucrnI9w . It usually gets a lot of laughs

This is one of the lessons I do at the beginning of the semester, and I think my students enjoy and understand it, as it reflects in their midterms where most of them still retain what was learned. 

My Online Reputation

As a teacher, I really need to think about what I put online. This is crucial if I am looking for future jobs, especially in  some more reserved countries. It will also help sculpt the image I want to portray of myself, not only for future employers, but also for other people including fellow teachers and students. 

One of the things I need to really be careful with is having my picture taken, mainly in social settings because anything nowadays can be misinterpreted. There are a lot of pictures of me online that were pre-teacher age, or when I was a student, that could not be very appealing for new job prospects, so it's probably best for me to remove most of those pictures. I need to create an image that can be better perceived as an educator, especially if I want to teach younger kids in the future.

I also need to make myself a harder target to be found in the search engines. I can do this by putting my privacy settings on high in all of the webpages I join, and make sure that anything I want to put out there is only shared with the people I want it to be shared with. Even then, anything can get out in the infinite cosmos of the world wide web, so it is probably best to only share what would be acceptable to not only my friends and family, but also to future employers.

Any comment, post, tweet, etc., should carefully be assessed by me before I air it out into cyberspace. Any comment can be misconstrued, judged wrongly, or taken out of context.

These are some of the steps I can take to sculpt a better digital reputation for myself. With so much information accessible out there, as an educator, I really want to leave a positive reflection of myself in the digital world. 

Presenting Effectively

A presentation could be a beneficial way of conveying information to a number of people in one sitting, if done right. As a teacher, I am essentially "presenting" information to my students every day. There are numerous ways that I have learned to become a more effective presenter.

I need to keep it simple. Often times I find that I write all the information under bullet points so my students don't miss any information. By doing this, they are paying more attention to writing those down, than actually listening to my explanations. I need to keep it to a maximum of six bullet points. This will also help me know my stuff better and it will also ensure that I am not reading frame to frame, making it an ineffective and boring presentation.

Another way that I can become a better presenter is by really thinking about the design, colors, and look of each frame. There should be a contrast between the letters and the background. Also, sometimes I tend to just find pictures that somehow relate to what I am talking about, but I never really stop to think about their size, resolution, or positioning on the frames. By placing them in certain places, enlarging, or arranging them in a certain way, I could create a greater impact on the information I am trying to convey.

In every frame, I should be able to ask myself what the point of the frame is, and why it matters. If the answer is unclear, I need to just get rid of it instead of wasting time and adding useless information.

Giving handouts with key points, or something that the audience or students can take with them, is another useful way to help me present better. This will give them something to refer to after the presentation, help them remember some of the key information that had been discussed, and also give them a chance to go over some information that they might have over looked.

Overall I don't have a fear of speaking in public or doing a presentation in front of people, but taking the time to really think about the information displayed on each frame, will hopefully help me enhance and deliver an effective presentation that doesn't feel long, boring, or unprepared.

Work in Progress

I can quickly respond to the numerous ways in which I think I can improve overall and make myself better as an inhabitant of the globe. But how could I improve as a teacher? That, I had to ponder on for a bit longer.

I never really dreamt of being a teacher. Because I just naturally fell into this profession, and it was not something I actively pursued. When contracts rolled around, I always had the thought that I was going to finish my current contract, leave, and start a different career. This had been going on for ten years.

That was my first mistake. I needed to commit.

Don't get me wrong, I get along great with my students, plan my lessons out thoroughly (not only because I want my classes to be educational and fun, but also because if it's not a good time for my students, it is hell for me, and that equals to a very unhappy Analia in life, and in general). I have excellent evaluations from my students, and after finishing most of my classes, I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside that I have inspired my students (at least two), and done my job right.

Taking this masters was the first step towards admitting to myself that this is going to be the path in my career, not only for now for, but for the impending future. This has already given me a different mindset. It has become the spark for me to become a lifelong learner in the educational area. It also helped me realize I need major improvents as a teacher. I really need to update the way I teach. 

I did the math, and my university students were eight when I got to South Korea. As shocking as that was to me, it is even more of a shock to realize I've been teaching pretty much the same way for ten years, tweaking activities here and there, but nothing significant. I am slowly but surely becoming, well, outdated.

I really want to integrate technology into my classes, having a better connection with my students using those new tools. This course, Creative Teaching Techniques and Utilization of Multimedia, is an important step in helping me improve as a teacher because it will bring me the knowledge of different educational programs and tools out there to incorporate in my classes and help modernize myself as a teacher. Hopefully this will create a pathway for additional, creative ways, for me to educate and inspire my students.