Ronnie's+page+1

Reflection 1-Hi, my name is Ronnie and I have been teaching FOREVER!!!!!! I started in 1977 as a teacher of the Emotionally Disturbed. Actually my degree says SMED (socially maladjusted and emotionally disturbed). Not much hope for kids with that label, huh. I began teaching in basements and trailers of school parking lots. I moved away from public education because I felt I had more of a need to work with kids along the fringes of education so I took a job in alternative ed. I worked for Norristown School District in an amazing program. The alternative school had teachers supplied by the school district and a counseling staff funded by a private social agency. We worked together, side by side, as one big family. Our students were from many surrounding districts who had "slots" for their most difficult students. Juvenile probation, Children and Youth and district expulsion students made up our population. It was the most wonderful job, being on the ground floor of this innovative and unique setting for kids. Fast forward to 2012, three children, many dogs and two marriages and I come today. As I approach the end of my career, what I want most is to leave this career I love truly fulfilled and being a master teacher. I also don't want to be one of those bitter old biddies that kids say should have left teaching years ago. I LOVE my students and I want to leave loving them more than I did when I became a teacher many years ago. I also want to have mastered the craft of teaching. I do believe it is a craft, an art. I believe that all children "walk in the light". This is a term borrowed from my last stint at formal religion, Quakerism. I believe in order to really teach children, you need to first see them as little teddy bears and make a connection with them. No matter what you have to teach them, developing a relationship is paramount. I want my skills to be timely as I am not just an immigrant to technology but an alien. I took forward to learning. Reflection 2-

5 new technologies- [] Want to look at more 4 ideas to share with others 1) designing instruction from the bottom up 2) considering adding additional ways for students to access information other than reading 3)I just opened a blog. Don't know what I'll do with it but here goes.
 * I joined Facebook and was almost late to class because I was friending people this morning.
 * I used google doc with my team mates to create a power point of chapter 4
 * I joined teacher tube and school tube
 * I opened a gmail account
 * www.wordle. com- Would like to use this with Text Structure vocabulary and have student 4 terms to respond and reflect upon

3Principles of UDL Second weekend of class and here's my 5,4,3,2,1 5- This week I checked out voice thread which I would like to use during our Holocaust Unit. -I also did a Zoomerang survey with my Rap 4 Peace kids yesterday. I can't wait to read their responses -I friended a bunch of people on Facebook and thought it takes up too much of my time -I checked out edutopia and the teacher blogger of the year. I wasn't able to pull up much that I could use yet. -I went on Thinkquest and checked out a piece on tectonic plates. I wasn't impressed at all with it. Wish it had some animation- 4 ideas to share -Shared Courtney's wiki for our book club. -Would like to share a Voicethread with the other teachers of the Holocaust -Found a powerpoint on Text Structure ( teachertube) and shared it with Courtney and Catherin http://www.udlcenter.org/implementation/examples/examples2_1 Sent Brian (our science) teacher a website from sciencewriter to use with our students in science class 3Principles of UDL -Presenting options for how kids receive information -Differentiating for the way kids express what they know -Stimulating interest and motivation for learning 2changes in my teaching to reach all learners -I want to allow students to use more technology to respond to what they know. I will encourage my co-teachers to let me add more options for assessment. This will be a real challenge in math and science as those teachers are much more rigid in their teaching and much more lecturey. -I want to really think about the "design" aspect of UDL in my lesson plans. - I big idea to implement is that I want to really use the lesson Courtney and I developed for teaching point of view. - I will also try, I said, "try" to not be so judgmental about the part technology plays in the part of my student's lives and my children's lives.