First activity – Vision Boards

Your first activity is to help yourself lay out a vision of who you want to become. Please follow the directions below carefully!

First open up google slides. https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/0/?tgif=d

1. On your first slide answer the first five questions .  Then brainstorm question 2. After doing those items create the Vision Board (3) on a google slide and follow the directions carefully.  4. Finish up with a short reflection essay of 175 words about the activity. I will be moving around the classroom to offer assistance and you may talk to students who sit near you if you need help at any point on your vision board.
   

1. Review Goals. Please answer these questions on your first slide.
   1. Goal for this year, are you on track to meet it? What can you do?
   2. Goal for four years of high school, graduation? (ex. white gown) What do you need to do now to meet that goal?
   3. Future Goals; after High school, college goals, career goals? What makes you happy?
   4. Write at least three things even if they seem silly. For example, I like the color red, daisies, chocolate chip cookies, basketball etc.
   5. What is “one word” to help you focus for the year. Choose one word that will inspire you.
2. Brainstorm. Think about the lifestyle you want? Things like living in a city, by the ocean, or having weekends off, working four day weeks, etc. Does your career goal, meet these desires? What career do you envision doing? What pictures can you find that depict the life you want.
3. Vision Board – Create your second Google Slide that encompases all these things. This is the one that should inspire you. Make sure you include your one focus word, and a lot of photos of what represents success for you this year and in the future. Be creative! Have fun and let your personality come through. Be sure and follow copyright laws .
4. 175 word reflection – Please complete this project with a 175 word reflection on how you felt about making this project. Explain what was difficult. What did you enjoy? How did you like using google slides for the project? Any issues? Describe what you learned about yourself while working on this. You may type this on a google document or additional slide. Share all the slides and/or documents together when completed with me at creersh@nv.ccsd.net

Who does this instructional activity address? This activity addresses my gifted and talented students and also my culturally diverse learners. It is also a great activity for all of my students with all levels of cognitive challenges as it allows them to work independently, focused, and work at their own level and ability. There is room to explore and be creative. I have used Google Slides Presentations as the web-based tool. There is no right or wrong answer for this project. I appreciated reading this in the book, Teaching and Learning with Technology “Whether a student is physically challenged, has learning issues, or is gifted, technology can play a significant role in enhancing and supporting his or her learning…. technology solutions can be remedial, supportive, or expansive in the learning experience across all content areas (Lever-Duffy & McDonald, 2015, p. 67).

Lever-Duffy, J., & McDonald, J. (2015). Teaching and learning with technology (5th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.

Reflection

This week’s assignment was a little rough for me. Honestly I had a hard time understanding how I was to complete the work and starting a blog was very overwhelming for me. I am not one who loves to write and also technological tools, such as this blog, can be daunting for someone unfamiliar as myself. I am still fumbling over how to create new posts and while I did like wordpress better than google blogger, as it had more options I could figure out, I am still not over feeling anxious. I am a prime example of the reasons technology isn’t always smooth sailing. What would have been more helpful for me was to have someone to work with me who already had experience creating a blog. Perhaps a pair up would be helpful in this circumstance? Or a video teaching me exactly how to do this wordpress blog. Technology for me is hands-on and if you don’t know how to do it, if you are like me, you resist.

That being said I did eventually figure out a lot! I am actually excited to share my introductory post with my students next fall in health ed and health science. I can see how a blog could be a really awesome way to interact with my class and have them contribute individually with posts, feedback, and comments as well. The practice writing and critical thinking for my students would be fantastic too. I chose to use wordpress as it was the most familiar to me and also seemed to have the most creative options I could figure out. I am a very social person and I do like the idea of sharing my thoughts with a larger audience besides my students as well. I think setting the example for my students of constructing their thoughts and putting them online for others to share is a worthy activity. I’m also considering having my students keep an online journal on the subjects we cover in health class using WordPress or perhaps another web based tool that can encourage creative thinking and analogy as well as communication and possible collaboration.

WordPress.com(n.d.). Retrieved from https://wordpress.com/