Mayr_James_SU2014

Above: James Mayr ponders the implications of his decisions.

I have just completed my first year of teaching English at a public high school in the Bronx after a summer of training with Teach for America, and now I look forward to my second year working with 11th-graders, especially now that I've got some real experience. My school is a specialty high school in two ways: for starters, all of the students are first-generation immigrants from Latin America whose first language is Spanish. At the same time, the school offers rigorous technology courses through which students can earn real certifications in web design, media and communication, computer science, hardware, etc., and even graduate with an Associate's Degree in certain cases. So this course is interesting to me in a very professional sense, given how much I can pass on to my students.
 * Biography and Tech Experiences **

It's also interesting to me in a personal way. I have always been fascinated by consumer technology, both in terms of the advances in design and user experience and the way certain technologies can instill loyalty and dedication. My mother was always terrible with technology, causing errors no one knew how to fix, but as a teacher, she received all sorts of discounts from consumer technology companies, so I was using a Power Mac with dial-up Netscape in elementary school. But I mostly used computers for creative projects, especially word processors and paint programs, rather than communication software. I neglected email through most of high school, I skipped myspace and held off on facebook until May of my senior year of high school, and I even avoided buying a cell phone until one was thrust at me upon my graduation from a friend who wanted to keep in touch. Now, of course, I use all of these and many other systems on a daily basis, but I wish I didn't have to. Sometimes it'd be nice to disconnect.

A classic example came in college, when the overwhelming omnipresence of other people would drive an introvert such as myself to literally take to the hills. My school upstate had a seemingly infinite "nature preserve," and there was no better way to relax than putting my smartphone's music player on shuffle and wandering aimlessly through the woods. Of course, I had a habit of neglecting to tell my friends I would be disappearing, so they would frantically call me, one at a time, wondering where I was- and be quite distraught when I swiped "Ignore" on every call. Unfortunately, the damage was done, a sad reminder that there is no disconnecting anymore.

At the same time, I am entirely reliant on my various devices to function. Even if I don't pick up a call, my cell phone is still connected to my computer through the cloud services where I have dumped my life. After an intense exploration and testing process, I've selected the services that work best for me and migrated all of my music, photos, and documents online, where they remain in arm's reach at all times, alongside my contacts, calendars, and communications. If I were to move someplace without a constant internet connection, my productivity and perhaps my personal relationships would likely grind to a halt. So perhaps it's a good thing I'm never disconnected.

1) Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity Although I myself and fairly digitally literate, I recognize that I have not used technology to its fullest extent in my work with students in my first year of teaching, especially at a technology-centric institution. For example, though I often gave students various options for presenting research and literary analysis, most stuck with the systems and platforms they were familiar with, such as PowerPoint. Therefore my goal for this course is to become familiar with at least 3 new digital platforms or services that I can teach my students to use directly this school year. (1b: Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.)
 * Technological Self-Assessment and ISTE*T Goals **

2) Design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments I am an avid user of Google’s various services, including Gmail, Google Calendar, and most notably, Google Drive and its component applications. I have used these services with my students as well, and taught many functions of Google Docs, especially collaboration and revision tracking. However, only a few weeks into this course, I find myself bewildered by the possibilities of Google Classroom, so a goal for this course is to learn how to establish a Google Classroom I can use with my students next year in order to drive more of their assessments and projects. (2a: Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.)

3) Model digital age work and learning One of my professional goals this past year was to found a student newspaper, and although interest in the organization never coalesced around a tangible project, I have hope that a modified form can have more success next year. Rather than a physical newspaper, which elicits cost and distribution problems, a digital publication can allow for constant updating and wider dissemination, reaching the demographic generally left in the dark: families. Therefore, one of my goals for this course is to set up an online student newspaper, with multiple teacher administrators able to contribute student writing, in order to present the best student work to families and the community. (3c: Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents, and peers using a variety of digital age media and formats.)

4) Promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility I’m proud of the way I handled emergent plagiarism in the beginning of the year; my students are ELLs, so it’s usually quite obvious when a line of a research paper is copy-and-pasted from a fluent English-speaker on the web, and Google instantly directs me to their sources. But rather than simply fail the student, I always pull them aside, present them with the previously published website, and demonstrate the proper way to cite the information, celebrating the fact that they are essentially doing research. What I would like to do, early in the year, is preempt this behavior by teaching proper citations and showcasing models of footnotes, endnotes, in-text citations, and bibliographies. My goal for this course, then, is to become familiar with 3-5 web resources students can use to avoid plagiarism by documenting research and compile these into a student-friendly digital hand-out. (4a: Advocate, model, and teach safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources.)

5) Engage in professional growth and leadership Other professionals in my school regularly praise the design of my presentations, the physical layout of my assignments and assessments, the capabilities of my student grade trackers, and my organization of computer resources. In fact, on more than one occasion, teachers have requested I run a professional development session on using Excel spreadsheets, Google Docs and Slides, and so on. Therefore, another goal for the semester is to design an interactive presentation in which I can teach one of these resources to my peers. (5a: Participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.)

Click here to view the final portfolio or navigate to @https://sites.google.com/site/ctge6261portfolio/
 * Final Portfolio **