Lost in an Art Fair

Screw north campus, screw Ann Arbor, and screw this freakin’ art fair! These were the (severely edited) words I uttered as I drove haplessly around Ann Arbor Friday morning in an attempt to find parking. After an hour of searching, cursing, walking, and smoking way too many cigarettes I finally managed to make it to class an hour late. Once in class I found that, had I read the e-mail, I would have known that parking was available in the permit only parking lots if you paid for it. So the moral of the story, boys and girls, is to read your e-mail.

            Anyway, on to the class; I surprisingly had fun in class on Friday, July 20. I say surprisingly because I’m not good with technology and expected this class to be very stressful, but it wasn’t. In fact I created a webpage and it wasn’t even hard! I even put things that I didn’t need in my page because it actually made sense to me! I thought that weebly could be a valuable asset for me in my future classroom, because it would be a great place to have my students make portfolios. The site would allow them to easily customize their pages, which would make them more attached and more likely to work hard to make their portfolio the best they can. It would also be easy for me to get online and check their work.

            The second half of class was equally productive for me. Jeff’s lecture was interesting, and I feel I really gained a greater understanding that something that may be easy for me may not be easy for my students. I also got a good look at how teamwork on activities may help students, as working with a partner made understanding the handout much better. The lecture on Angry Birds in math was also very helpful. I like the idea of using video games in the classroom to help build learning, and this was a good idea of how to do it. The specific idea of using angry birds won’t work in my history classroom, but it got me thinking about ways to integrate video games. All in all this was a great class!