RATL | reading about teaching language (spring, 2013)

RATL | reading about teaching language

Spring Quarter June 13, 2013

In this digest of articles, you can 1) borrow great tech 'needs analysis' questionnaire items for your students, teachers and yourself,  2) learn how to make simple animations, 3) explain Bloom's Taxonomy more effectively, and 4) be part of a great discussion of the merits (or demerits) of using learning styles in the classroom. Enjoy! -roger dupuy

Article No. 1 

"6 Great Tech Question Charts for The 21st Century Teacher and Student  Educational Technology and Mobile Learning"

This article has a series of questionnaire-type questions for you to find out more about your students' and teachers' understanding and use regarding technology. There are six sections, so there's room to pick and choose. These questions could be used to create your own 'needs analysis' questionnaire. It is a great read for you if it only informs you of your own behaviors regarding your patterns as you interface teaching and technology. -RD

LINK: http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/04/6-great-tech-question-charts-for-21st.html


Article No. 2

"A Keynote (Mac's Powerpoint application) Animation Tutorial."

This is a 5-minute video teaching you how make an animation using your keynote presentation software. It's pretty easy, but there are a lot of steps. There could be a little confusion as the voiceover asks you to have an 'animation template' created. All this means is that you need to create a NEW keynote file with the title 'animation template'. It's also a good video for a different reason: it's a good tutorial. She uses an iMovie template for the flying transitions. -RD

LINK: https://vimeo.com/64513862


Article No. 3

"14 Brilliant Bloom’s Taxonomy Posters For Teachers"

The name says it all. You can give your students some really cool bloom's taxonomy visuals. -RD

LINK: http://www.teachthought.com/learning/14-brilliant-blooms-taxonomy-posters-for-teachers/


Article No. 4

"The Myth of Learning Styles" (by Mo Costandi)

Was Gardner wrong? Was he misunderstood? Here's what you might want to do: 1) read the article, 2) then read the comments to the article that follow.  Some commenters react with their 'gut instincts', others, like Jen Lillianstein's comments, logically point out flaws she sees.

What's your take on learning styles? -RD

LINK: http://thinkneuroscience.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/the-myth-of-learning-styles/


California in Science Fiction Symposium, April 4, 2013

The Future is Here:
California in Science Fiction
A Symposium
Thursday, April 4, 2013
12:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Humanities Gateway 1030
University of California, Irvine

The West Coast of the US, and California in particular, has long been a source of inspiration for the SF imagination: the state's history offers a rich repository of utopian schemes, dystopian realities, collectivist experiments, and commercial and ecological catastrophes. During the Cold War and after California has represented the vanguard of technoscientific progress, free-market ideology, lifestyle libertarianism, and countercultural experimentation. California shares the seismic instabilities of the Pacific Rim and is integrated into the cultural and economic exchanges facilitated and regulated by global capital throughout the region. California exists in the larger cultural imagination as both a much-dreamed-of sphere of spiritual discovery and multicultural hybridity as well as a nightmarish realm of ecological disaster and race war. Join us for a lively discussion of these and other issues with SF writers, theorists, and critics.
12:00-12:30: Introductions by Jonathan Alexander

12:30-1:30: Oath of Fealty: Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Gregory Benford on the classic novel about a surveillance community in Los Angeles

1:30-3:00: A State of Difference: Sheila Finch and Steven Barnes on writing gender and race in Californian SF

3:00-4:30: Breakout sessions: Writing SF (Workshop on Writing SF with Sheila Finch and Workshop on Writing SF with Steven Barnes)

4:30-5:00: Concluding Roundtable: The Critics & Theorists React: CA & SF? (Catherine Liu, UCI Film and Media Studies, Sherryl Vint, UCR English, and Matthew Wolf-Meyer, UCSC Anthropology)

Please RSVP at icruse@uci.edu by Monday, April 1, 2013.

Sponsored with a grant from the California Studies Consortium, the UCI Humanities Collective, and the UCI Center for Excellence in Writing and Communication.