Google Earth

Google Earth is one of the best gadgets that Google has made! I love to play on this gadget. You can view anywhere in the world with this gadget and you can even view the stars! All that is needed to get this gadget is a download to your computer and you are ready to go! You can look up anywhere from your home to the farthest reaches of whatever country holds your interest.
I would use this tool to show students the relation of the places that they are reading about. It is easier to understand places if you know where they are. In literature it is often hard to visualize a foreign place and its surroundings in a story when you have no idea where it is or what it looks like. I plan to use Google Earth to show students the places that they read about. I would show them where they are in relation to themselves and the world along with the surrounding areas. I believe that this will help my students to see the places and understand the stories that they read better!

Something for Every Learner

As a future teacher and from experience in the past with my teachers I believe that it is imperative to give lessons that cater to all of the different learning styles. I know that most of my teachers stood in the front of the class and lectured us and then passes out worksheets for us to practice what we learned; or if we were reading that day we just took turns reading the text book. My vision is to create a classroom where this happens rarely. I would like to have a class where all learning styles are employed. It would be a break from the monotonous and create a fun and easy learning environment. I still remember a lesson taught by my 11th grade American history teacher were he had three of us sit on the floor with our arms linked. One of us then had to try to stand while the other two held that one down. This lesson was demonstrating the checks and balances of the American government.
Those are the types of lessons that I would like to have in my English class. If we are reading then maybe we might have "actors and actresses" act out the story. Or perhaps for a grammar lesson we might have a fun game instead of a worksheet!

Bringing Art to the English Classroom

As I mentioned in my earlier post, About Me, I believe that art should have a place in the English classroom. English can be a little bit of a bore to the average high school student. So why not spice up the subject and the classroom with art projects? I remember in my 12th grade British Literature class my teacher assigned an extra credit assignment for Beowulf. Students were to make their interpretation of Grendel's torn off arm. It was fun watching my fellow students present their "arms" and then after that the display that my teacher rigged to the ceiling of the classroom (She had tired the Grendel Arms to it!). I believe that projects like that among others would bring the stories out of the printed pages so that students could both understand the subject better and have more fun in a normally bland class.
Art is not the only thing to spice up a boring day reading the textbook! I also believe in bringing drama to the classroom. What brings Shakespeare to life better than an impromptu play not only read out loud but acted out in front of the class? It not only makes the class fun but brings a better understanding to hard to read and harder to understand literature!

iGoogle

IGoogle is also new to me! I came across it this semester in my Educational Media class where we had an assignment with it. I found this application to be very useful for the classroom. In iGoogle you can add RSS feeds, and gadgets that relate to any subject. This can be useful to the class because the teacher can add different gadgets that relate to the class. For example my iGoogle home tab has online grammar, ask a word, word of the day, and etc.. These are not the only gadgets that would be available to my students because I also have different pictures of the day, current moon phase, and a couple different RSS feeds for students to look at along with three other tabs that contain more gadgets.
The iGoogle application like the blog can also be a good source of homework. As a teacher I could assign a homework assignment asking for the word of the day or the phrase of the week. It also is another great appendage of the classroom giving the students an educational outlet to their technology addiction! Students would be able to go to the iGoogle of their class and learn while they are at home on the Internet!

Blogs to Keep Everyone on the Same Page

To be completely honest I had never used a blog before this year. I was abruptly introduced to them this semester when it suddenly became mandatory for me to keep track of two blogs and have created a third by the end of the semester. I didn't know the first thing about them or what kinds of uses they could be put to! I must say that I was pleasantly surprised with what I found them to be useful for! I found that there are many teachers using them; not only here in the USA but in other countries as well!
I plan to employ blogs to help keep my classes on track. If a student misses a class then they can go to the blog to find what was done that day in class. Blogs can also be used for other things such as homework assignments, and peer-references. They can be used to continue the students education outside of the classroom by correlating different lessons, homework, peer-references, and professional-references with what they learned inside of it!