Creating a Myth v. Studying a Myth

  

 I have always really enjoyed mythology I found creating a myth to be different from studying a myth. Creating this myth is probably the most creative assignment that I have done this semester. Creating my eclipse myth made me think about what kind of elements are in a myth and what makes a myth successful. When I was studying the Bhagavad Gita myth, I was not as engaged as I was when I was creating my eclipse myth. I like that we had a lot of creative freedom when creating our myths because I think it made it a more enjoyable assignment. I was interested in  studying the Bhagavad Gita myth because it was a myth that I had never heard of before. I think that knowing how to create a myth made me more aware of what I needed to pay attention to when studying the Bhagavad Gita. I learned a great deal about the importance of technology in the myth presentation. Most of my life I have been taught by teachers who used very bland PowerPoints and who never really incorporated any media to the lesson. In my future as a teacher I am excited to create lessons using a more fluid alternative to PowerPoint like Prezi and incorporate media that my students will find more interesting. I found my peers’ presentations really engaging and I was genuinely interested in what they were presenting. Hopefully incorporating media will help my future students to be interested in the lesson. Also I think that the create your own myth assignment is very interesting and will help students understand the myths they study. 

Writing About Poetry V. Writing Poetry

I would consider writing about poetry to be analytical and somewhat sterile. I don’t really enjoy being the one analyzing a poem and dissecting it thoroughly because sometimes when you dissect it and pick apart its rhetoric and figurative language it tends to lose its magic. I think it’s easier to write about poetry than to write poetry. Writing about poetry is just recognizing the form, structure, and figurative language used and then analyzing it. Whereas writing poetry is more of a balance between making sure the structure, form, and figurative language are all there and have a universal theme that will translate to your audience. Essentially, I think that creating is more difficult than criticizing. I enjoy writing more than anything else but sometimes I find it challenging to write poetry because I compare my writing to those of established writers and poets and then the task becomes quite daunting. I think its easy to get caught up in the technicality of poetic form and then overthink every detail until you don’t know what to do anymore. However, I enjoyed the process of writing these poems because the quick write and the “wrecking the first person” helped create some rules and structure to the process but they weren’t rules that made feel overwhelmed. Both exercises were useful techniques in getting some thoughts out, it was stimulating and it gave me something specific to write about while still having creative freedom. In the future as a teacher I would like to implement something similar to the quick write and “wrecking the first person” to help my students get an idea of what to do but also allow them enough freedom to create something that still feels organic. As a future teacher, I hope to create a safe environment for my students so that they can be comfortable enough to share their poems also.

AN EFFECTIVE USE OF MEDIA TECHNOLOGY

Media Technology plays an important role in teaching because the world is constantly changing and technology plays a huge role in the change taking place. Students need to learn how to use media technology in a way that will help them become future professionals in their chosen careers. Students today are much more inclined to use technology than any other students before. Media Technology allows for students to have access to information instantly thus speeding up the research process.

I have witnessed students using media technology in an effective way. I worked at a middle school as a tutor and a teacher's assistant. I observed an assignment that the students did on chrome books. The students did their research on the chrome books, they would pick quotes and evidence from online articles that were relevant to their research. Later, in google docs the students would have to make a summary of the articles they read and explain why the articles they chose are relevant to their project. This project was assigned in AVID which is an elective class that encourages students to go to college. The students where researching colleges and career paths that they are interested in and making connections between what the universities offered and what is required for their career path. Periodically the students would share their progress with their teacher by pressing the "share" button and tagging Mrs. Williamson's name. This way Mrs. Williamson could monitor their progress without hovering over them. I really like that it was paperless. I think it was beneficial to the students that they could share their progress with the teacher and get feedback from her quickly. They also learned about what sites where creditable and which were not. For example, they learned to seek out the universities official site instead of reading whatever Wikipedia had to say about the university they were researching.

The classroom I worked in also had a Smart Board in the front of the classroom which was helpful because it's like having a giant touch screen monitor where you can pull up images and the write on top of them. 

Image can be found at:

http://leegreensmartboardtutorial.pbworks.com/w/page/39631428/Smart%20Board%20Tutorial

Hi I'm Esty

My name is Esther Lopez but you can call me Esty. My family is originally from the city Culiacán in Sinaloa, Mèxico. We moved to California when I was about five years old because my parents couldn't make enough money to feed our family. Much like other families that come to America from other countries, my parents also believed that moving to the U.S. would create better opportunities for their children. Since my mom was born in America my family had a much easier time immigrating. I grew up being taught that everything has two names, a Spanish name and an English name, this is how I became fluent in  both Spanish and English. I'm dyslexic but I love to read. I'm really excited about becoming a teacher because I love learning and teaching others. I really believe that sharing knowledge and helping students think for themselves and become confident in who they are and what they're learning is very important. I have had amazing teachers in my life, as well as teachers who couldn't really be bothered to do their job, but the ones who wanted us to be independent thinkers and celebrated individuality played a huge role in my development and I would like to be that kind of teacher some day. I am very proud of my culture and my journey to becoming a first generation college student and as a teacher I want to encourage my students to work toward their goals.