MAC Week 4: Comment for Karen

Karen,

Partnership for 21st Century is the site I based most of my action research on. I love this organization, they keeps things simple and applicable to the classroom. It is amazing that it has take this long for such practical skills to be promoted by an organization.

A lot of teachers apply practices that promote these skills in their classroom without even realizing. Standardized testing is such a dominating factor, the skills that allow our students to be successful in the 21st century workforce are at times pushed aside. It is so sad that these priorities are so mixed up.

MAC Week 4: Art of Possibility

"I am the framework for everything that happens in my life". What a powerful message Zander sends with his tenth practice of possibility. It seems so easy to sit back and place blame on others to make ourselves feel less guilty. The true test is our ability to see how challenges and situations fit into our game of life. What have we done to bring different situations into our own lives? If we actually spend some time looking into the situation it is humbling to think about all of the different ways in which we welcome things into our lives without even realizing.

Owning up to everything that happens to us and choosing the being on board approach opens one to the possibility of a much more graceful journey. Taking responsibility for everything in our lives allows us to quickly get back on the track we were on before a challenging situation or event that may have occurred in our lives. When you grace yourself in this manner it leaves you free to choose again and move on.

Of all messages I have read from Zander I feel this is by far the most meaningful message! This is a great strategy to teach our young students. So many times students have an excuse for why their work doesn't get done and never does it include any choices of their own. They do not seem to see how they have brought certain situations upon themselves. What a powerful lesson to teach, being the board.

MAC Week 4: Comment for Scott

Scott,

I am a country girl through and through, the thought of public transportation gives me a panic attack. I think it is amazing that you have taken your journey each morning and turned it into a positive and even reflective time for yourself.

I agree that the reactionary powers we have adapted contribute to how we react to situations and events in our lives. This book has been a powerful teaching tool and I agree it's lessons would greatly benefit our students outlook on the complicated world that surrounds them. They have so much more to experience and to offer them the ability to come upon it with an open mind and positive attitude is one of the greatest gifts we could offer.

MAC Week 3: Optional Post

Check it Out!

I discovered a few new applications for my classroom this week that I had not heard about until this week. So I thought I would share some of them with you incase you haven’t had the chance to use them yet.

This application is similar to Wordle and allows you to make tag clouds. The cool thing about this program is that you can create interactive words as well as host your Tagul to a URL link.

Prezi is an application that allows you to create interactive eye popping presentations live and on the web. I have not had a chance to create one yet, but I have heard good things about it.

Animoto allows you to take photos and create unique videos from them. It is similar to Photo Story and is free for videos up to 30-second. This would be a fun and easy assignment for student to create a short video about what they have learned in class or to cover certain concepts without having to learn all about video editing.

MAC Week 3: Art of Poosibility

I found myself yet again analyzing my own thoughts and abilities surrounding this weeks reading. It really is difficult to set aside assumptions and feelings to sort through the facts of a situation. Most times when we are faced with struggles in life, feelings are what drive our reactions. It has always amazed me how some people have such great coping skills and tend to be able to sort through the facts, seemingly unfazed and move down a new pathway, while others wallow in negativity and lose their ability to function.

Two years ago my husband and I were faced with some serious "rain" when he resigned from his teaching job after 10 years due to false accusations from a student. When faced with this I choose to leave the struggle behind and move forward because it was out of my control and I knew that. I came to terms with what was in front of us and chose to move on and accept it for what it was, a bump in the road. But for him he couldn't let go of the struggle and fought it for well over a year even after choosing to resign. He had lost so much he couldn't see past the negative of the situation. Like is says in the reading "when we dislike a situation, we tend to put all of our attention on how things should be rather than how they are" and when this happens we lose our power to act effectively. He lost his power to act effectively and it took a long time for him to discover that when one door closes another opens, but sometime we focus so hard on that closed door we fail to see the other that has opened for us.

For me the reading this week reinforces the importance of accepting things the way they are!

MAC Week 4 Publishing/Leadership Project

For the pushing project I have submitted my action research article to Tech Directions magazine. Tech Directions is a magazine that links education to careers. Since the focus of my action research was to create a project that helped students to practice skills needed in the 21st century workforce this magazine seemed like the perfect fit. I teach health education but this project was a cross curricular project with a technology class and the technological applications used in this project are a perfect fit for this magazine. The article has already been submitted and approved for publishing in the magazine. This is not a research journal but a magazine for educators looking for new ideas and technology activities they can use in their own classrooms which I feel is best suited for our project.

MAC Week 3 Comments for Sharon

Sharon,

I completely agree with you. Going into this program it never occurred to me that we would be getting into our major courses and really needing to use our students not only for our Action Research but for assignments/activities as well. It definitely has been a struggle to keep on track with no students all summer, but I feel for you and the situation with your school. That is too bad that everything is getting changed up on you at such a critical time in our program. I wish you the best in completing your Action Research!