UCF can be a little trashy.

The University of Central Florida has a beautiful campus. I walked from one end to the other today looking for a building so that I could get some info. I even met a pleasant, friendly, and helpful Freshman that was able to get me where I needed to go.

One thing that I do when lost on campus is pick up random pieces of trash that I come across. It could be 20 years of habit reinforced by a year of working at Disney, or it could be that I don't want my campus looking trashy. That's part of being proud of something, you want it to look sharp and professional. I do the same thing at work, as I am walking into my store, I pick up trash in the parking lot.

I don't go out of my way to pick up the trash, if it is a couple feet away, one or two steps, I'll grab it and drop it in one of the trashcans that are everywhere. Well, today I actually gave up after all of the trash that I had picked up. If every student strolling, walking, or rolling around campus would pick up just a single piece of trash I'll bet the place would stay clean.

Priorities!

I know that I'm not a young adult going to college here, but there are a few things that I have noticed from my peers in class.

Group work- Do it! There are other students in class that are relying on you to do your part.

Class work- Your Professors are giving you the opportunity to get a good grade, if you are making the effort, they are going to work with you. There will be assignments where you will be told, "If you do not do this, you will not pass the class!" Guess what? There is probably a reason for this. If you do not complete that assignment, there are few things the professor can do for you.

Extra Credit- If it is offered, do that too! 

Time management- There are 168 hours in a week. Even if they sleep 8 hours a night and have a full time job, that leaves 10 hours a day for other pursuits! With classes taking about 16 hours a week, that would leave them with 8 hours a day. They can still work on homework, practice an instrument, play video games, watch movies, hang out with friends... whatever!

Respect and Motivation- Now in college, students are paying for school. If not them, then someone is paying for it. They should have respect for that investment, if not, why are they there? Other students in the class want to be there, don't disrupt the class. Texts and social media posts can wait an hour or three while in class. There may be a whole 5 minutes of catching up to do after, think of the fun!


P.S. The Professors are always right!

Technology in the classroom

So here I am, older, but not really THAT old. I was going through school at a time when we still had books, film strip projectors and VCR's. Really now that I think about it, one of the 'modern' TV's we had at the Intermediate School was a projection TV and that was a big deal. That is what I saw President Reagan give a speech about the Space Shuttle Challenger and her astronauts.

Now I am learning again in school and the technology is wildly different than what I left 22 years ago. Teachers can take polls from their student's smartphones, YouTube videos are played through projectors onto smartboards that teachers and students can interact with. Classes can be taken online through virtual schools that are run by the State Department of Education. Physical libraries are being replaced by computer labs.

I have had to relearn how to learn, how I get the information, how I have to present the information but thankfully not so much how I process the information. I like it, I think it is incredible the amount of resources that I have available to me just through the internet, and for FREE! Yay!

I am enjoying  my experience so far. Coming into it relatively cold, not having been in a regular classroom in 20 years, I have had to adapt to this relatively quickly. Students now have technology integrated into their learning experience from Pre-K!

A new beginning.

So here I sit, reading posts, blogs and articles that are telling me that everything I thought that I was going to do is wrong. Sure, being an example is easy, be someone with good morals and treat others as you would like to be treated. Be positively optimistic. Teach.

Teach.

That is becoming a scary word to me. It is exciting, and I hope that I am going to be good at it, but there is a ton of responsibility in that word, it is more than just keeping the kids alive for seven hours, making sure they eat their lunch and get them back on the bus or in their parent's car safely. I have been doing that with Privates for years, I just hope that I never have to go to the Police Station at 3 in the morning to sign for one of my 3rd Graders.

I am behind the power curve to most of my peer group when it comes to technology. Sure, I love computers, I can repair them, I can use a smartphone... but when it comes to taking a selfie or making a vine, I am absolutely lost.

Cats = Clicks



There's your introduction to anything digital media related that I know.

Of the three blogs that I visited, the thing I noticed about them was how focused they were on the people. Sure, there CAN be some info in there somewhere, but mainly what I see is Social Media. They want introductions and pictures, well if you want that, you can go to my Facebook site.

Classroom 2.0 had a Networking event and personal introductions on the home page. I'll not mention the name of the next one because they were sorry that they didn't have a new Chromebook, and the third was all about political activism. Edudemic was a nice read though, their posts talked more about how to enhance and develop the students which to me seems a little more helpful.

When they make these "Top 10 lists" of this or that, these are all based on opinion. Is the website that is building the list wanting to push an agenda? If they are, the only blogs that are going to make their list will reflect that agenda. It is an unfortunate side-effect to this new connected world, the squeaky wheel is going to get all the grease.

Deflategate!