The Flight of the Kiwi: An Interesting Assignment October 30, 2007

The Summary: 

In the box on the side of my blog is a video of “The Kiwi”.  This short film shows the dedication and thought that one little kiwi puts towards his dream of flight. I think that this film would be a great teaching tool for any language arts class.

The Assignment:

After playing the film for the class the teacher should ask the class to first think of the obvious reasons for the plot:

1. Why does the kiwi have to find an alternate way to “fly”?

2. Why would the kiwi want to fly?

Then go on to expand the line of thinking:

1. What other animals cannot accomplish certain actions?

2. How could these animals follow the “path of the kiwi” in order to acheive their goals?

After discussing the reasons for the kiwi film and the other ways that the message can be used, the teacher should then assign the following assignment:

The Noble Flight of the Kiwi

In the film that we watched the Kiwi did not let the fact that he is a flightless bird stand in the way of his dreams. Though it was a little unorthodox, the Kiwi still found away to fly. After watching this film you should reflect on the ways that others overcome obstacles and excel.

In 3-4 pages write a short story about a charachter that must think outside the box to accomplish their dreams. When you have complete the short story make a visual project to accompany your store. This can be anything from a comic book to a short video.  The more creative the better. Just make sure it is about a charachter overcoming hardships to achieve their goals. This could mean anything from a fish who wants to walk on the land to a deaf person who wants to experience an opera. The thing to keep in mind is that the dream cannot be something that the charachter can easily achieve.

This assignment will not only help mold your creative writing skills, but will also help you to think outside the box. It will enable you to think of creative ways to solve a problem. This will come in handy throughout you schooling as well as in your daliy life.

You will be graded on the follow:

-Is the short story well thoughout?

-Did you proofread and make corrections?

-Was your visual project well thoughtout?

-Does your visual project reflect the short story?

Pew Internet and American Life Project October 21, 2007

The quiz “Where do you fit in?” is a fun quiz that gages where you fit in with the rest of society when it comes to the quiz-taker and their use of technology.  It then averages the score and compares the results to others who have taken the quiz.

I was in the “Omnivores” catergory. This meant that:

Based on your answers to the questionnaire, you most closely resemble survey respondents within the Omnivores typology group. This does not mean that you necessarily fit every group characteristic.

Omnivores make up 8% of the American public.

Basic Description
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Defining Characteristics
You might see them watching video on an iPod. They might talk about their video games or their participation in virtual worlds the way their parents talked about their favorite TV episode a generation ago. Much of this chatter will take place via instant messages, texting on a cell phone, or on personal blogs. Omnivores are particularly active in dealing with video content. Most have video or digital cameras, and most have tried watching TV on a non-television device, such as a laptop or a cell phone.

Omnivores embrace all this connectivity, feeling confident in how they manage information and their many devices. This puts information technology at the center of how they express themselves, do their jobs, and connect to their friends.

Who They Are
They are young, ethnically diverse, and mostly male (70%). The median age is 28; just more than half of them are under age 30, versus one in five in the general population. Over half are white (64%) and 11% are black (compared to 12% in the general population). English-speaking Hispanics make up 18% of this group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many (42% versus the 13% average) of Omnivores are students.

Question to Damion Frye October 9, 2007

After I read the article “Spreading Homework Out So Even Parents Have Some” it was suggested that I email Damion Frye to find out more information on the way he keeps parents involved. I sent Mr. Frye an email asking what he did about parents who did not have internet access. This is his response:

RE: Teaching Question‏

From: Damion Frye (dfrye@montclair.k12.nj.us)

Sent: Tue 10/09/07 12:12 PM

To: L T (ltstrickland@hotmail.com)

The students are given 10 minutes in class on Fridays to copy down the topic (or I pass it out to them if it is longer) and they begin their responses.  They then, if the parent does not have access to a computer, give the topic and their response to their parent.  The parent then writes their response down and sends it back in by the following Friday.  Out of all my students, only 1 parent has informed me that they do not have an internet connection or access to the internet.  This was actually the first year that I have done it online, it used to be where all the students and parents had to write their responses.  However, since I respond to each student and parent I got to be too hard to handwrite all of my responses.  So I justtype them up now and the conversation remains (paperless – for the most part) and online. Feel free to ask any more questions!!!  Take care. Damion Frye 9th Grade World Lit Montclair High School 100 Chestnut St. Montclair NJ 07042 973-509-4004 dfrye@montclair.k12.nj.us How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.                                                             “The More Loving One”  W.H. Auden

Early Blogs October 9, 2007

Spreading Homework Out So Even Parents Have Some October 8, 2007

When reading the article “Spreading Homework Out So Even Parents Have Some”, I had several mixed opinions.  This article is about Damion Fry, a ninth grade English teacher at Montclair High School in New Jersey. Fry has a class blog that requires the parents to post about whatever their kids are learning for that week. It is required that the parents post a response or tell why they were not able to post or their child can lose points.  While the article said that Fry has only taken points from a student once, I still feel like it is not right. Even though it was not enough points to change the child’s grade, it is not right to make a child suffer because of their parents.

I also take issue with the fact that the parents have to post to the blog. Believe it or not there are still many households that cannot afford  to own a computer. This may not be a reality in the town of Monclair, where people such as Buzz Aldrin, Steven Spielberg and Yogi Berra have made their homes, but it is still a common situation in many households. Even if parents have Internet access outside the home it can still be very difficult.  Many adults are not allowed to use office computers for anything except for work. I know that I have worked at a law firm where any outside web access was blocked. It was blocked because they had fired so many people for searching the web while at work.  So people who don’t have a computer at home and can’t use one at work are limited to using one at the public library (which has limited hours) or pay to use the computers at an Internet cafe or Kinko’s…let’s be realistic. After working all day and having to get home to make dinner, clean the house, take care of the kids and keep the slightest bit of sanity, venturing out to search for a computer to make a post is probably not in the cards.  Not to mention the time it would take to read the assignment that you are to be  posting on.

This idea of having parents read and do homework to help them get more involved is great for stay-at-home parents or rich parents who have extra time, but this is not a reality for many working moms and dads. I know when I was growing up my parents had to work all the time and didn’t have the luxury to sit and do homework. They were traveling for work or not getting home until late. There are many kids who, like me, are latchkey kids whose parents have to work hard to take care of their families.  It would be great if parents could spend all their time helping and bonding with their kids, but unfortunately that is not the way the world works.