09.23.08

MicroTeaching

Posted in Music, Teacherly at 5:53 pm by Abby

To watch the video that this post is related to, please go here:

Abbytalks.wordpress.com

I was unable to get it to load onto Edublogs, and so had to put it onto my wordpress account (created just in case of such an event as this) instead.

This video is one of myself giving a micro-teaching lesson to my Methods class.  In this project, we had to compose our own lesson plan and then teach it.  I choose to do second grade, which is why I’m treating my fellows like little kids.

Mistakes that I noticed:  I know I made several mistakes on here, such as I need to stop bobbing my head like a duck all the time.  I got rid of the habit last year but it seems to have returned from the summer break.  I didn’t really need to do the extra run-through of clapping the rhythm while the person played it because it was so simple, and in fact stopped doing this after the first or second time.  I should have arranged my instrument parts on the board in order highest to lowest, and then started on the bottom and worked my way up.  This, however, was because this was a last-minute change for me.  I also need to develop the ‘eyes in the back of my head’ since I completely missed seeing K whacking at J with the rhythm sticks.  Instead, (unseen on the video) when I turned around I saw J poked K in the leg, hense my decision to ‘punish’ her.

But overall, I think I did okay.

09.04.08

A Test of my Own. Part II

Posted in Uncategorized at 11:43 am by Abby

In continuation of my last post, my website does seem to have a high intelligence rate when it comes to figuring out just what Dihydrogen Monoxie actually is. Two days after I set up the poll, I now have five votes against the proposed ban, and one vote for. My inbox tally is up to three statements to me on the fact that they know what it actually is, and the yea-sayer figured it out as well.

So out of six votes (so far), I have six voters who all individually figured out what Dihydrogen Monoxide is.

I have the strong suspicion however that any further votes given will be too strongly affected by the conversation that has started up on the thread that the poll is in to trust that they figured it out on their own. While no one has stated the answer, those that have started posting have had great fun by saying everything possible EXCEPT what it actually is. So the experiment is now pretty much over with. Still, it was fun to do and has left the members of my website with a fun smuggness that we are (self-declared) smarter than average. And left me with the knowledge that sometimes things won’t go quite as predicted.

09.02.08

A test of my own

Posted in Uncategorized at 3:41 pm by Abby

Part of my technology class today revolved around a website and Youtube video that dealt with the banning of Dihydrogen Monoxide.  A very dangerous and potentially lethal substance that can cause death, skin damage, sickness, and has been proven to improve the abilities of atheltes.  This substance is also better known as H2O.  Water.

In the video, an experiment was done at some kind of rally to get people to sign a petition to have it banned, and hundreds of people end up signing this petition.  The video didn’t mention if anyone actually figured out what it was or not out of all the people they asked.

But I found the idea quite amusing, and so set up a similar experiment on my website to see what would happen to it.  A site filled almost entirely of upper high school/ college age/graduated people, it’d be interesting to see who paid attention in their Chemistry classes.  I set up the poll, linked the website against the evil DHMO, and waited.

Within twelve hours, I’ve had two vote No, and received one private message of:  “Oh yes. *eyes the name of poll* Let’s just up and ban water.” *

It will be interesting to see if anyone else votes, and since I have it set up that a person cannot see what the votes are until AFTER they themselves have voted, it eleminates the risk of them being affected by the votes of others.

* – To protect the privacy of the members of my website, I will not be giving out names/webnames/or the address to/name of my website unless permission is given by the individual (in the case of the middle) or it is very specifically needed (in the case of the latter).