Blogging Prompt 10/29

Reading literacy is higher with women compared to men. But literacy in males has grown 11% between 2002 to 2008. These statistics were from this site: Link is here. I think it is a good thing that literacy is being emphasized in schools. Reading was seldom taught in one of my grade schools, though sentence structure and spelling often was. It is harder to teach and grade reading than grammar. I think that it does need to be taught, especially to boys. Boys do have a higher chance of developing learning disabilities and other problems sometimes brought about prenatally.

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Web Page Evaluation Project

This article: Feline Reactions to Bearded Men was created by a group of indiviuals teaching at several universities, or at least appear to be with no mention of their subjects. Many of the studies were inconclusive and I found a university site claiming that this article is a spoof Link to the article here. There is no email address for viewers to contact any of the authors. I think this is an article likely to be a false trail for researchers. Even the statements about the research sound very silly: "The test subjects were female cats, all between the ages of four and six. 214 cats participated in the study. Three cats died during the study, due to causes unrelated to the bearded men. Fifteen cats gave birth while viewing the photographs." There are no peer reviews listed. The language used does not even seem professional compared to the usual language in psychology articles or other such kinds of research.


There was an unfinished study done in November 2001 not even researched by the same individuals with a manipulated photograph as the illustration. Improbable Research is a site that does not prove the information given is true, it is just a website for humor and way to get people to think.

Blogging Prompt 10/20

An activity that promoted different kinds of literacy was designing a magazine cover. To create the magazine cover you would have to know how to use several different technologies: how to use a camera, how to create and manipulate material using photoshop, and how to upload images to communities. In a traditional way, you have to use phrases and captions to grab attention and write to appeal to your audience. One also learns visual interpretation and creative skills as a bit of a bonus in this activity. The magazine cover activity filled many of the standards in the National Technology Standards for Teachers, but the one standard I most enjoyed fillng was 1. Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity.

Edmodo survey answer

Fifth graders did change their attitude towards writing by using Edmodo. Before the digital story activity only 5 students liked to share their stories a lot but after the story activities 8 liked using Edmodo for the feedback as seen on the graph.

Blogging Prompt 10/8

Edmodo is a great way to support literacy instruction in school. I learned a fair bit about posting, commenting, and student psychology from something so simple.
The student I monitored had excellent writing skills for their age, though the class had different levels of skills. I would consider using Edmodo to

connect with other classrooms, like college classrooms to get a heads up along with my students about current techniques and expectations. I found that the students had good speaking skills and easily followed directions.

Student feedback on 21st century question.

Many people agree that students should do better quality teamwork and more of it in school. My peers think we should do more group activities to better prepare students for the workforce. I think there needs to be better rules set for the activity and one of the responses supports that idea of a structured group, not just one thrown together, which has a bad effect in some cases.
Doing this activity made me feel less tense about my writing and more casual and truthful. No comments were off the wall, all were rather related, perhaps a little too much. It was easier to react constantly rapidly, not just the second time. Writing in isolation is much harder when you do not know what your audience is like.

Photography interpretation blogging activity

This photograph of Obama is a head and shoulders portrait. He is not smiling and his head is tilted as if in concern. He is not wearing a suit, only what looks like daily wear for a middle class citizen, making him more relatable to his audience. The image is in such high focus you can see every gray hair and every line on his skin as if the cameraman wanted him to look aged and a little weary. The detail could just be another indicator of his importance. The background is faded out, so he is the focus of the picture. The lighting is dramatic, making his expression look even more somber and the camera is directly in front of him.

This picture has much more going on in it. The president is surrounded by people, though he remains in the center like in the last photo. He is smiling in this shot and his body language is casual, with his arms dangling as he walks and his shoulders are relaxed. The background has what looks like a small guarded tower near or on a ferry. The American flag is visible. They are walking from the ferry and talking, looking like a united group with the president at its center. The president is in the midst of white middle age males with a man that looks like he has Asian ethnicity in the background, though I cannot be entirely sure. The men are in work uniforms and the guards at the lookout are standing alert.