Leigh's Blog

Pecha Kucha: Finding My Why After being shifted around a little bit at the beginning of my teaching career, I had settled into a position as a third grade teacher.   I was in a wonderful, close-knit neighborhood school.  I worked with dedicated and supportive teachers. My daughter was a kindergartener there.   I was happily moving along in my teaching career, and I would have loved to stay there forever.    But then three years ago, after 6 years in my position, my principal walked in my classroom with a sad look on her face and closed the door behind her.  “You’re being involuntarily transferred,” she said. My district was expanding their Dual Language Immersion program, and I had the certification that was needed.   So off I went to a different school, teaching a different grade, and in a new program.   I dove in though and had a positive attitude about it.  Who knows, maybe I would grow to love teaching in the DLI program? ...

Sugata Mitra is an educational scientist who studied what would happen when he gave self-supervised access to the internet.  He claims that modern schooling came about in the Victorian era when it was essential that everyone be able to read, do math in their heads, and have good handwriting.  He made an interesting argument in stating that schools as we know them now are obsolete. They’re outdated.”    Mitra’s curiosity about what children would do if left alone with a computer led him to the conclusion that children would learn- in a language other than their own and content that is a decade ahead of their time.  He argues that all they need to succeed is access and encouragement.  His video clips of children gathered around a computer show children who are engaged, excited, and seem to be learning. Prior to distance learning, my 3rd graders did not use the computers and internet in my classroom a whole lot.  They would use them for additional ma...

While at first it might seem that Sherry Turkle and Mike Wesch are on opposite sides when it comes to beliefs about technology, it seems to me that they are both actually on the same team.   Turkle says that technology is “so psychologically powerful that it's changed how we behave.”  She argues that texting, email, and social media all allow us to “edit” ourselves rather than reveal our true selves the way we would with old-fashioned conversations.  She contends that technology is setting us up to be “alone together.”  I agree with many of her points and I have observed them first-hand in both myself and in others.  Such as going to dinner and the people at the next table are slouched over scrolling through their iPhone, or forcing myself to take a break from the classroom to go have lunch with my colleagues and walking into the teacher’s room only to find everyone spread out, eating in silence while they check their Facebook. And good luck with getting me...

I have seen Disney’s Moana probably a dozen times.  I know the soundtrack by heart and have bellowed “How Far I’ll Go” at the top of my lungs in the car with my two daughters a few times.  But I will never watch Moana, or any other Disney movie for that matter, the same way again.  Viewing it from the critical lens as suggested by Christensen in Rethinking Popular Culture and Media , I see it in a whole new light.  Prior to today’s viewing, I thought it was a good movie.  Moana is a strong female character and seemingly independent, thus the film portrayed a positive female role model and message for young girls. I appreciated how it wasn't the typical “happily ever after” girl-meets-prince, prince-saves-girl story that I’ve seen many times.   But when I watched Moana with a critical eye and thought about how women are represented, I was surprised to find so many stereotypes perpetuated throughout this film.   Some basic gender roles are made cle...

For my tech tutorial I thought I would spend some time learning about the "Snip Tool" that I have heard a lot about from other teachers- how they were using it and how "easy" it was.  I could have used this too during distance learning but never took the time to learn how to use it.  Instead, I did things the long and hard way...   Turns out, I should have taken the time to learn about this time-saving tool!   Watch my tutorial here :     "Snip Tool" Tutorial for Mac You may find these shortcuts handy to access the Screenshot App right from your keyboard on your Mac:  Command + Shift + 3:  captures a screenshot of your entire screen   Command + Shift + 4:  turns the cursor into a crosshair, which allows you to select which portion of your screen you would like to capture These are some other snip tool Apps that are available for a Mac:   Greenshot Lightshot Snagit

Being a “math” person I was easily attracted to the chapter titled, Math and Media: Students Who Use Math to Track Media Bias in Rethinking Popular Culture and Media .  It was a short read that talked about how math can be used to analyze and address social problems.  The author of the chapter, Bob Peterson, gave some examples of ways that math can be used as a tool for studying discrimination and stereotypes and for researching bias in the media. One of the activities, titled “Photo Fairness” was derived from the Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) media watchdog group.  After this group examined front-page photos for a month in three major daily newspapers, it was found that women were “dramatically slighted.”  For example, in the Washington Post, only 13% of front-page photos were women. In terms of race, people of color “seemed to fit neat stereotypes.”  Thirty percent of all men of color in front-page photos were athletes.  Fourteen percent were ...

Simon Sinek, in his TED Talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, explained why some people are able to inspire and others cannot.  He used the “golden circle” to explain his theory and focused on the innermost part of the circle, the “WHY” as the key differentiator between those who lead and those who do not.  He used strong examples of leaders such as Apple and Martin Luther King, Jr. to illustrate his points.  Apple knows what they believe and so people go out and buy their products.  Martin Luther King knew what he believed and people from all over came out to hear his words.   Hearing Sinek say “Your beliefs determine your actions” really resonated with me because “what you do simply proves what you believe.”   A wise individual once told me, do not pay attention to one’s words, rather pay attention to their actions.  That was a hard lesson for me to learn, but it is a principle that I now live by.  Sinek’s talk further prompted me th...