FAQ: Teaching American Literature Thematically

Over two years ago, I wrote a post about my approach to teaching American literature thematically. I close comments on posts once they are a year old, but this post continues to generate some questions, so I thought I would post an update in answer to the questions people most frequently ask me about teaching … Continue reading FAQ: Teaching American Literature Thematically

American Literature: How I Threw Out the Chronology and Embraced the Themes

If you went to an American high school, I’ll bet your high school had an American literature course. Other courses seem to vary based on type of school, location, and other interests, but American literature seems to be the one universal course. I know it’s the only literature course that all the high schools where … Continue reading American Literature: How I Threw Out the Chronology and Embraced the Themes

New Opportunities

I am excited to announce the next chapter in my life. I will not be returning to my present school after this current year, and I am actively searching for opportunities elsewhere. I have a strong background in technology integration and English and am seeking opportunities in either or both areas. One of the things … Continue reading New Opportunities

Portfolio

I began really working on my ITMA portfolio yesterday. It seemed like a huge task because I wasn’t really sure what was expected. After I started working on it, I found myself really enjoying it. I liked the freedom to choose artifacts. In choosing documents that illustrate my progress with design, I included my project … Continue reading Portfolio

Professional Development Goals

You know how you’re supposed to visualize where you want to be 1, 5, 10 years from now so that you can plan how to get there? I’ve been thinking about what I want to do professionally. In one year’s time, I will be finished with my ITMA degree. I don’t have any desire to … Continue reading Professional Development Goals

Audacity and GarageBand

For my ITMA project today, I did quite a bit of playing around in Audacity and GarageBand. I have made a few podcasts, but I haven’t honestly played around with the software beyond recording and editing. I wanted to learn how to add music tracks to podcasts and how to diminish the music so it … Continue reading Audacity and GarageBand

Uploading Videos: Lessons Learned

As part of my ITMA project, which I’m just going to go ahead and create a tag for, I decided I would create several screencasts. Often when I want to learn something about a piece of software or how to do something on the web, nothing is as helpful to me as a screencast. My … Continue reading Uploading Videos: Lessons Learned

Professional Organizations for Instructional Technologists

Early on, the IT blogosphere seemed to be populated with folks who were members of ISTE. When I started my ITMA program at VA Tech, I joined ISTE, but I didn’t join any of the other educational technology organizations. My last assignment for Instructional Media included some reading in our text about different organizations. Some … Continue reading Professional Organizations for Instructional Technologists