Day 13 of Class and Partial Backstory

Today begins my forth week as a Grad student, which still strikes me as crazy.  It would have been smarter to begin this right when I got to B-more, but I figure it still has merit to write about my life.  Baby steps, right?  In this post, I'll run you through today, go over what we've done in my three classes so far, what B-nasty has been like for me so far, and anything else which occurs to me.

Today
Woke up this morning at 7:27, three minutes before my alarm (boo-yeah).  Then I put a healthy breakfast/snack/lunch together and headed out to my 9 am class.  Today we talked about Lesson Plans, the role of games in education, and my group showed our Voice Thread.  Here is a link to it: http://voicethread.com/share/2170399/

After class ended at 12, a group of us headed over to this dope spot called the Paper Moon Diner.  This place was ridiculous; Mom, you especially would have loved it.  There were action figures and memorabilia everywhere. Here are some pictures:





They ran a strange, almost anarchist/communist collective type of establishment in which you could basically order from anyone and whoever was around would help out, then they split tips at the end.  Thankfully McCarthyism is over or this place would've been up there with all the other highly dangerous security risks, like actors.

General
I have three classes:
1. Teaching in the 21st Century Classroom:  Paperless Classroom (Mon/Wed from 9-12)
2. Reading in the Content area: Teaching in Today's Diverse Classroom (Tues/Thurs 9-12)
3. Pre-Internship Seminar (Tues/Thurs 1-4pm)

1. Paperless Classroom: This class takes as its thesis that using technology is the next necessary step in education.  The numbers of people connected to the internet is staggering.  There are 700+ Million Facebook users worldwide.  85% of smartphone users are not white, yet we say, "put your phone away and let's read a book" when they get to school.  Hmmmm, makes you think.  The learning curve is huge in this class for me.  I had never used Twitter before class (on the first day we set up an account because it is a requirement of the class to have one).  The Teacher is an interesting fellow, very compelling.  He told us in the first day of class all his keynote speaking and guest lecture opportunities over the past two years have come from contacts he has made and developed on Twitter.  Twitter=enormous networking possibility.
links: Did You Know? (vid about tech age) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o9nmUB2qls
Class syllabus: http://jhusocialmedia.wikispaces.com/

2. Reading: This class holds the central topic to be reading is involved in every subject.  This is not too much of a logical leap for me (reading in a High School English Class??!!).  The Pre-, During, and Post- reading strategies could be applied to any subject though and are really helpful.  Additionally, the teacher is always modeling good teaching, which, for me at least, doesn't come off as condescending at all.  Half the time, I take notes on here teaching strategies as opposed to the content she attempts to impart.

3. Baltimore: This is a strange class.  The main idea of the program is that the grad student has enough content to teach their subject.  The program is here to provide teaching tools and the opportunity to practice these strategies.  However, in this class, we are learning a bit of content which we are encouraged to pass along to our students.  We have gone on some walking tours around Fells Point (home to Frederick Douglas and near the harbor) and around the various tourists spots around B-more.  I got to introduce Charles Village, the neighborhood in which I live, and a Public Housing project near the school we will work at. 

Another component of the class is community service.  I told my adviser this would be a problem, I obviously don't care about the communities I live in, evidenced through my completing 4100 volunteer hours in the last two years.  I have been going to Barclay Elementary School two blocks away from the house I live in.  A community artist named Tamara hosts the project.  She is a bomb community activist.  She made a nice lil address panel for her home out of glass shards and groat.  Some neighbors liked it and she got some change from the neighborhood to do her entire block!
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The first week of classes, when I was calling Jody's extra room home, I drove 1 hour and 15 minutes both ways.  This...sucked.  Being at her place and hanging out was dope, it was amazing to have a place to land and have her give me a feel for the area, but commutes suck.  Now my commute is a five minute walk.  Strange block.  I can park on our block and the block at one end, but not the other end, too hood.  Some of the row houses are boarded up a few blocks away.  But my block is cool, people always on their porch and chillin' out.

That's it for this post.  From now on, posts will be either theme, event, or update focused.  Probably.
Hope you enjoyed.

~Jake